Lexical convergence and divergence in Portuguese 47The uniformity U’ for a set of concepts Z between two samples Y 1 and Y 2
equals the sum of U-values for Zs weighted by the relative frequencies G of
Z within the total set of Zs.
The weighted uniformity U’ implies that high frequency concepts have a
more outspoken impact on the overall uniformity, whereas the unweighted
uniformity U presupposes that all the concepts hold the same status. The
relation between Y 1 and Y 2 – in the present study, between EP and BP – is
accounted for from a pragmatic and communicative perspective rather than
a structural one. Hence, the U’ measure is more significant than the U
measure. In fact, the attested occurrences of an onomasiological profile are
an important factor for calculating the convergence or divergence between
language varieties.
Diachronically, convergence and divergence can be quantified through
increasing or decreasing uniformity. Synchronically, the greater the dis-
tance there is between the standard and substandard registers, the smaller
uniformity there is between these two registers. We consider that only sta-
tistical differences above 5% are significant, whereas smaller differences
are not. This is a rule arbitrarily chosen to account for a statistical margin of
error.
Table 1. Uniformity (U) for the FORWARD profile between EP and BP (1950-1970)
FORWARD P50 B50 U P70 B70 U
atacante 8,8 36,6 13,6 73,8
avançado 71,6 0,9 47,4 0,0
avante 0,0 48,9 0,0 11,0
dianteiro 19,2 6,8 20,1 0,7
forward 0,1 5,2 0,0 0,0
ponta-de-lança 0,3 1,5 19,0 14,5
16,9 28,8Table 1 shows the percentages of the U measure in relation to the onomasi-
ological profile FORWARD in the Portuguese (P) and Brazilian (B) databases
between 1950 and 1970 (P50, B50, P70, B70). These percentages equal the
sum of the smallest relative frequency for each alternative term, i.e. 8.8 +
0.9 + 0 + 6.8 + 0.1 + 0.3 = 16.9% and 13.6 + 0 + 0 + 0.7 + 0 + 14.5 =
28.8%. The increase in uniformity between EP and BP from 16.9% in the