Estudo linguístico no litoral maranhense: léxico e cultura dos pescadores do município de Raposa

Abstract

This study aims to survey and to describe tlhe lexicon of the fishermen of Raposa, Maranhão State. The fishing community of Raposa is located approximately 47 kilometers far from São Luís, Maranhão, and it consists primarily of fishing families who migrated from their homeland, Acaraú, Ceará, in the 50s. We aim to observe the extent to which the lexicon of a community that works with the fishing portraits the social and cultural reality of this group. We intend, therefore, to show that the lexicological studies indicate a close relationship between man, culture and environment in which they operate. Our theoretical-methodological support was mainly Sociolinguistics (Labov and Milroy), Lexicology (Biderman), Lexicography (Barbosa, Esquivel and Haensch), Linguistic Anthropology (Duranti and Hymes), Dialectology (Isquerdo, Ferreira and Cardoso) and the concept of cultural region (Diégues Jr). Following the Labovs model, we start from the present, collecting our data from 10 oral interviews, returned to past, consulting dictionaries from the eighteenth century and nineteenth century and returned to the present to establish comparisons among these periods. After analyzing the data, we confirmed the existence of a regional vocabulary in which words related to the fishing have great spotlight and in which the influences of the marks of the sociocultural structure of the region of Ceará where lies Acaraú are evident. We also observed, through the neologisms that occurred in our data, the great creative capacity of the informants. The results obtained by our research showed some historical, social and cultural aspects of the region, highlighting the importance of the lexicon related to fishery for Raposa city.