Estudo lexical das variantes sulistas relacionadas à alimentação e culinária presentes nos cardápios de restaurantes e lanchonetes do oeste da Bahia

Abstract

The emergence of different linguistic varieties corresponds to the diversities of social groups that belong to a given speech community. Investigating linguistic variants of speaking subjects from different regions brings a possibility of reflection on the linguistic heterogeneity present in a space for the construction of social identities in the interactional context. The objective of this dissertation is to verify the presence of southern words, which name typical dishes from the South, served in restaurants in the cities of Barreiras and Luís Eduardo Magalhães-BA, and which are included in the menu of the establishments. For this, it was necessary to a) enumerate the lexical items originating from southern speech and present in the menus of restaurants and snack bars in western Bahia, b) to identify the existing dialectal influence, due to the migratory process, in the composition of the local variation related to cuisine ; and c) verify possible changes in meaning in the lexical items that name the dishes. The empirical research carried out was exploratory with a qualitative approach. To control the data, the interpretations themselves were prioritized. The data used were taken from the menus of the aforementioned cities, belonging to various linguistic communities that are of southern origin. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation, the restaurants surveyed were those that offered meal delivery and allowed the customer to choose from the menus online. Eight restaurants were found in Luís Eduardo Magalhães and eight in Barreiras. In the two cities surveyed, of the restaurants found, a significant number were steakhouses, serving the traditional gaucho barbecue. When finding several restaurants serving typical southern foods, it is clear that the gauchos have been incorporating, over the years, their traditions, customs and vocabulary in the Bahian environment. With the accomplishment of the present research, it was concluded that, although the gauchos speakers have built a positive attitude towards the dialect of the new contact situation group, they adopt the strategy of divergence and linguistic preservation.