The Topic
In recent years, universities, governments and institutions in general have become actively involved in the recognition, acceptance and appreciation of diversity, whether based on gender, social background, ethnicity, sexual orientation or language. Although this diversity is celebrated and seen as a marker of social development, in line with some of the main strategic pillars of the Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015), this view is not always shared by everyone, especially by the population. This is the case with linguistic diversity: while different varieties of a language are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, they are simply different, people have strong and entrenched beliefs about the correct forms of the language and, more dangerously, these views can translate into discriminatory behavior towards speakers of non-standard forms, as evidenced by the education system and the job market. Negative attitudes towards minority languages and non-standard linguistic behavior are often used as criteria for measuring and (self-)evaluating language quality. For example, French spoken in Canada, particularly in minority contexts outside Quebec, is often stigmatized as being far removed from the linguistic norm. Similarly, Brazil's non-urban linguistic communities suffer from the same negative evaluation of their language. Speakers of these dialects may not be taken as seriously as they would like. Although French and Portuguese are among the most codified languages in the world, non-standard grammatical forms continue to characterize the spontaneous, even vernacular, speech of even educated speakers. This workshop focuses on the study of normative grammatical structures, which provoke strong reactions from teachers, intellectuals, writers and the general public. The aim is to understand the interaction between the linguistic system, culture and society, examining linguistic variation and change beyond standard linguistic ideology, and to discuss how to develop tools to mitigate linguistic prejudice and discrimination.
Organizing committee: Salvio Digesto and Rosane Berlinck
