Fabio Scetti
Université Paris Descartes - CEPED, France

Pluricentric languages and their non-dominant varieties. Migrant pluricentricity:
Portuguese in the particular context of the Portuguese community in Montreal

Keywords: Portuguese, Montreal, migration, ND-variety

This paper is based on the author's doctoral research in Sociolinguistics, and provides important insight into the complex issue of defining a non-dominant variety of Portuguese in a particular context of immigration. In Canada and more specifically in the city of Montreal, where the Portuguese community have created their own distinctive environment, called “comunidade” (community), this language has been simultaneously shaping the linguistic panorama of the city with the other two dominant languages: French and English.

This sociolinguistic research will focus on the dynamic and complex evolution of the Portuguese language through how it is practised, and how it has structurally mutated during the process of transmission from one generation to another. Observing seven elements of weakness, it has been possible to analyse the language's evolution, and the importance of the influence of dominant referential varieties, i.e. PE (European Portuguese) and PB (Brazilian Portuguese), and ND-varieties often classified as “dialects”, named as PI (Portuguese from Madeira and Azores).

In addition to the question of language attrition, and the influence the process of transmission has had on its development, the research analyses how the Portuguese language and culture may well survive over the years, both within the community and the official bilingual context peculiar to Montreal. The methodological approach adopted, using questionnaires, observations and interviews, has allowed the influences of both referential variations to be analysed in order to define this particular ND-variety which has derived from the immigration process, and increased the understanding of the relationship between the language and the group’s identity.