De 'toxicomania' a 'dependência química': uma análise na perspectiva da lexicologia sócio-histórica

Abstract

The present study aimed to analyze the lexical items toxicomania and dependência química in the Portuguese language, whose meaning has as its central idea the "continuous or periodic consumption of psychoactive substance". This analysis was based on the theoretical assumptions of socio-historical lexicology (CAMBRAIA, 2013). From the methodological point of view, the analysis was performed based on the 100 most frequent lexemes of two corpora composed of texts extracted from Jornal do Brasil: one from the 1970s for toxicomania and another from the 2000s for dependência química. Three hypotheses were tested and they were effectively confirmed: (a) the difference between toxicomania and dependência química is related to the type of substance consumed; (b) the relation between toxicomania and dependência química was influenced by the WHO terminological recommendation in 1974; and (c) the difference between toxicomania and dependência química reflects different views on the issue.