Why did not portuguese originate from latin? A historiographic analysis of “Gramática pedagógica do português brasileiro”

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyze the treatment given to the historical origin of the Portuguese language in the Gramática pedagógica do português brasileiro, by Marcos Bagno (2011). The general objective is to verify the treatment given by the author to the origin of the Portuguese language, in the referred grammar, opposing it to the perspective adopted by Brazilian authors who addressed some type of Historical Linguistics and to the verified data in the other author's productions. For this purpose, we analyzed the information presented in the materials that served as sources for the research, especially in relation to the author's rhetoric, in order to perceive the probable reasons for the author's distance or his approach to the thesis about the Latin origin of Portuguese.For the analysis, it was taken into account the theoretical-methodological proposal of Koerner (2014) and the proposal developed by Bastos and Palma (2008) on the investigation of contemporary objects related to a historiographical perspective.The analyses point to continuities and discontinuities in the treatment of the Portuguese language history that can be considered from the rhetoric adopted by the author in different works. It is possible, therefore, to emphasize that Bagno, in the GPPB, presents an apparently discontinuous rhetoric in relation to the traditional historical-linguistic studies, while in his remaining works, a continuous discourse in relation to tradition stands out.