Fraseologismos formados por "homem" e "mulher" no português brasileiro: estudo de campos lexicais e de variação lexical

Abstract

The lexicon of a linguistic community, in addition to naming beings, objects and things, can transmit values of a sociocultural reality. Phraseologisms, structures with lexical value, are not predictable from just the sum of their parts, but obtained from a linguistic convention. From this perspective, this work analyzes the phraseological units (hereinafter PU) that have in their constitution the names man and woman, bringing them together in lexical fields. Furthermore, it investigates whether there is a possible variation and change in the meanings of these constructions, establishing, for this purpose, a relationship with extralinguistic factors that can influence them; and whether there is change in its structures. At the theoretical level, this work explores an exposition on lexical studies (BIDERMAN, 1998, 2001); expands on the functional study of the lexicon and the theory of lexical fields (COSERIU, 1981 [1977]); presents theoretical assumptions on phraseology (PENADÉS MARTINÉS, 1999; ORTÍZ ALVAREZ, 2000) and studies on phraseology (BIDERMAN, 2001; IRIARTE SAROMÁN, 2000, XATARA; OLIVEIRA, 2002); discusses lexical variation (GARCÍA-PAGE, 2007; MORENO FERNÁNDEZ, 2005 [1998]; PENADÉS MARTINÉS, 1999) and lexical change (LABOV, 2008 [1972]); highlights the results of studies that relate lexicon, culture and society (MATORÉ, 1973 [1953]; BIDERMAN, 1998, 2001) and discusses some conceptions on linguistic sexism (DACOME BUENO, 2015; BODELÓN; RUBIO, 2012; ZAVAGLIA, 2022). The phraseology sample composition consists of data extracted from five portuguese language dictionaries: the Dicionário Aulete Digital, the Dicionário Aurélio da Língua Portuguesa, the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, the Dicionário Michaelis, general works; and the Dicionário de Locuções da Língua Portuguesa, a specific compilation of Portuguese language locutions and expressions. Responses to a lexical-semantic questionnaire (QSL) are also analyzed, prepared in an on-line format, from excerpts from linguistic databases present in the Corpus do Português (Web/Dialects) and Sketch Engine (Portuguese Web 2011 - ptTenTen11), which was applied to 60 participants, considering the variables: age, gender and education. From the examination of the answers obtained in the QSL, a possible process of variation in the meaning of the phraseologisms mulher do mundo, mulher feita and mulher da rua can be observed. With regard to social variables, education proved to be a possible influencing factor, as the dictioned meanings of PU were more recognized by participants with more than 12 years of education. The variables sex and age group were not productive. The results demonstrate that the lexical fields of the constructions object of study are similar, however, when the core name is male, they can be taken as positive, as they are in lexical fields considered socially favorable, while those with the name female are related to the universe of prostitution. On a last observation, the study shows that structures variation is wider if there is a change in the core names and that changes in non-core elements tend to not be viable. The work suggests that, throughout the history of Brazilian Portuguese language, in the same way as happened with the pair homem de rua and mulher de rua, phraseologisms formed with the words homem and mulher are constantly changing while also carrying arbitral meaning and that can be interpreted as a social and cultural consequence of the way human beings conceive and name the world.