Lexical convergence and divergence in Portuguese 43- Background and methodology
Differences between EP and BP exist at all levels of linguistic structure.
Innovative and conservative trends have emerged in both varieties, such
that tradition is not the privilege of EP nor is innovation the privilege of
BP.
The issue of a “Brazilian language” is back on the agenda and has awa-
kened those same passionate attitudes triggered in the past on three occa-
sions, namely Brazil’s independence in 1822, the period of Romanticism
and the period of Modernism. One example is the famous essay written by
Brazilian linguist Bagno (2001). However, linguistic purism is growing
stronger in Brazil nowadays. Recently, a Federal bill made provision for
forbidding the use of foreign words and stipulated the payment of fines for
those who breached the law (see Faraco 2004).
BP presents a situation of diglossia – there is a clear distance between
the idealized and prescriptive traditional norm and the real norm (or norms)
used in big city centers – and also a wide dialectal continuum (Mattos e
Silva 2004), while an increasing standardization of EP has been observed
since the 1974 democratic revolution. BP is now facing two major chal-
lenges: a sociolinguistic dilemma (due to great regional and social varia-
tion) and a didactic dilemma (teaching the language to a soaring popula-
tion). A population of 220 million Brazilians is foreseen in the next 15
years, that is to say, a 40 million increase in population (Castilho 2005).
As mentioned in the previous section, the four hypotheses about lexical
relationships between EP and BP are: (i) increasing influence of BP on EP;
(ii) stronger foreign influence in BP; (iii) greater stratification in BP; and
(iv) divergence between EP and BP. As for the hypothesis of divergence, a
well-known journalist wrote in a Portuguese reference newspaper:
Continua a haver uma só língua Portuguesa, mas nos últimos 50 anos,
digamos, têm-se acentuado as diferenças na sintaxe e no léxico − sobretudo
no vocabulário corrente. [‘There is still one Portuguese language only, but
let’s say that, in the last fifty years, the differences in syntax and lexicon
have been emphasized − above all in current vocabulary’] (Belard 2001)The anticipated fragmentation of the Portuguese language is clearly put
forward by a distinguished historical linguist on the grounds of what hap-
pened to Latin in the declining Roman Empire:
o modelo latino parece legitimar a previsão de que línguas como o inglês,
ou o português, faladas em espaços muito vastos, habitados por povos que