30091 - Portuguese and Brazilian Language (LM)

Learning outcomes

The student has an in-depth knowledge of linguistic and discursive aspects of the Portuguese and Brazilian language, from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, including its applications to textual analysis and translation. Through practical exercises, his communicative competences in all skills, active and passive, progress towards level C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference, which enables him to effectively interpret the socio-linguistic and cultural codes of the subjects involved in a communicative relationship.

Course contents

Starting from an accurate theoretical examination of the concept of ‘language history’, this course (A língua portuguesa: da história para as histórias) intends to provide an overview of Portuguese linguistic history not only from a diachronic perspective, i.e. linearly retracing the essential stages of its centuries-long course, but also from a diatopic perspective, i.e. declining it above all from a national perspective, with particular attention, naturally, to Brazil, but without forgetting the Lusophone African countries. The traditional treatises on centuries, in fact, that look at the evolution of Portuguese from a substantially unitary point of view, integrating the whole of Lusophone world within the framework of the colonial expansionism of the former metropolis, will be flanked by the partial rereading of this trajectory in a more Brazilian-centric perspective, where, even under the still common and generalist denomination of ‘History of the Portuguese Language’, a more culturally-specific vision of the linguistic phenomena of that particular socio-historical context will creep in. With this in mind, the course will be essentially divided into two parts: in the first part, the lecturer will carry out a critical review of Portuguese linguistic history, that is, avoiding going over it in its entirety and in chronological order, from its origins to the present day, and concentrating, rather, on some controversial historiographical junctures (the relationship with the Galician language, Middle Portuguese, the 18th century, etc.), which will be the subject of appropriate in-depth study and re-analysis. The second part, on the other hand, will examine the various manuals of the history of the Portuguese language produced from the 20th century to the present day in Portugal and Brazil, not simply using them as mere information tools, but attempting to grasp, behind the historiographical method adopted by their individual authors, the rhetorical construction of a manualistic ‘genre’, from which a specific idea of the Portuguese language may also derive. In this second part of the course, also in the wake of the reflections provided in the first part, students will be called upon, individually or in pairs, to choose one of the manuals of that corpus to be analysed, taking care, however, to highlight any problematic aspects or, on the other hand, those that are more innovative and of greater scientific value. These analyses of the individual volumes, to be illustrated in the classroom by means of PowerPoint presentations by the students, will then serve as a starting point to allow them to construct many new ‘Histories of the Portuguese Language’ - perhaps, as is desirable, variously declined by each, with different cuts and historiographical models -, which will be the subject of discussion during the oral examination with the lecturer.

Readings/Bibliography

The final exam will cover some of the following course readings, which will be made available to students at the beginning of the course:

BASSO Renato – GONÇALVES Rodrigo Tadeu (2014). História Concisa da Língua Portuguesa. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes.

CARDEIRA, Esperança (2006). O Essencial sobre a História do Português. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.

CASTRO, Ivo (1991). Curso de História da Língua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Universidade Aberta.

CASTRO, Ivo (2006). Introdução à História do Português (segunda edição revista e muito ampliada). Lisboa: Colibri

DA SILVA Jaime Ferreira – OSÓRIO, Paulo (2008). Introdução à História da Língua Portuguesa. Dos factores externos à dinâmica do sistema linguístico. Lisboa: Edições Cosmos.

FARACO, Carlos Alberto (2016). História sociopolítica da Língua Portuguesa. São Paulo: Parábola.

FARACO, Carlos Alberto (2019). História do Português. São Paulo: Editora Contexto.

NETO, Serafim da Silva (1988). História da Língua Portuguesa. 5^ed. Rio de Janeiro: Presença-INL.

SPINA, Segismondo (2008). História da Língua Portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro: Ateliê Editora.

TEYSSIER, Paul (1982). História da Língua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Livraria Sá da Costa Editora.

VENÂNCIO, Fernando (2020). Assim nasceu uma língua. Sobre as origens do português. Lisboa: Guerra e Paz.

VÀRVARO, Alberto (1972). Storia della lingua: passato e prospettive di una categoria controversa. In: Romance Philology, 26, pp. 16-51.

MATTOS E SILVA, Rosa Virgínia (2004). Idéias para a história do português brasileiro. In: Ensaios para uma sócio-história do português brasileiro. São Paulo: Parábola.

MULINACCI Roberto (2020), Prolegômenos para uma história linguística da lusofonia (des)unida. In Vieira – Bagno (orgs.), História das línguas, histórias da linguística. Homenagem a Carlos Alberto Faraco. São Paulo: Parábola, pp. 205-227.

If necessary, further bibliographic references will be given during the lessons.

Teaching methods

Seminar course (60 hours), with individual readings and in-depth studies. Attendance of language exercises (36 hours) is required.

Assessment methods

The examination will consist of an oral test (in Portuguese) in which the student will present his or her project ‘History of the Portuguese Language’, justifying the premises that inspired it, as well as the methodology on which it is based and the objectives it proposes. To this end, the basic knowledge and critical reflections offered during the first part of the course will not only form the basis of the dialogue between teacher and learner, but will also be subjected to further verification by means of open-ended questions, relating both to the actual diachronic development of Portuguese in the individual Lusophone countries, and to its manuals (except, of course, the one already examined by the student during the presentation to the class).

More precisely, the oral test - which can be taken even before having passed the part relating to the language exercises - is aimed at assessing not only the acquisition of specific knowledge of the subject, but also the student's ability to critically re-elaborate it, as he/she is required to demonstrate that he/she is able to make use, in an autonomous and mature manner, of the argumentative ideas and analytical tools provided in the lessons. Furthermore, since this is a Portuguese language test to be taken in Portuguese, the final assessment cannot obviously disregard the degree of communicative competence acquired by the student, according to the parameters envisaged for this specific year. In particular, fluent use of the language, expressive mastery, morphosyntactic correctness and lexical adequacy will be duly taken into account in the determination of the overall final grade, 60% of which will result from the grade given here (i.e. inherent to the linguistics syllabus).

Teaching tools

PowerPoint presentations, which, updated after each individual lesson, will be made available to students on the Virtual Platform (https://virtuale.unibo.it/my/).

Office hours

See the website of Roberto Mulinacci