Understanding Linguistic Prejudice: Critical Approaches to Language Diversity in Brazil

This book discusses linguistic diversity, linguistic prejudice, and language variation and change from a Global South perspective by analyzing Brazilian Portuguese, Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) and indigenous languages spoken in Brazil. It brings together studies and reflections on linguistic prejudice and social discrimination based on data and examples from Brazil and aims to bridge the gap between academic findings and popular notions related to linguistic diversity to promote language diversity and fight linguistic intolerance. Chapters in this volume present contributions to understand the origins and motivations of linguistic prejudice and foster awareness of entrenched opinions regarding linguistic diversity.

The first part of the book brings together chapters analyzing basic sociolinguistic questions concerning linguistic prejudice based on theoretical discussions and qualitative research. The second part is composed of chapters that analyze linguistic prejudice in Brazil in major communities that speak Brazilian Portuguese varieties and minor communities that speak native and sign languages.

Understanding Linguistic Prejudice: Critical Approaches to Language Diversity in Brazil will be a valuable resource for researchers in sociolinguistics interested in language diversity, language justice and language policy. It will also be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists and other social scientist interested in the relationship between language, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Gladis Massini-Cagliari is a Professor in Phonology who works at Sao Paulo State University, UNESP, at Araraquara, Brazil, since 1996. Her Ph.D. in Linguistics was obtained from Campinas State University, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil (1995). She spent one year at the University of Oxford, England (2002-2003), doing a post doctorate. Author of 6 books and organizer of other 8 and several papers and chapters on Historical Linguistics and Phonology, referring to Brazilian and Medieval Portuguese. Her research focus mainly on searching for clues to history of Portuguese rhythm and prosody, from its origins until today, in the registers of medieval secular and religious cantigas. She acted as Vice President for Undergraduate Studies at UNESP from 2017 to 2021.

Rosane de Andrade Berlinck is Professor in Historical Linguistics and Sociolinguistics at Sao Paulo State University, UNESP, at Araraquara, Brazil, since 1997. She obtained her Ph.D in Linguistics from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, KUL, Belgium, in 1995. From 2014 to 2015, she did a post doctorate, as a visiting professor, at the Sociolinguistics Laboratory of the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research interests and publications are in the fields of Historical Linguistics and Sociolinguistics of Brazilian Portuguese, with emphasis on linguistic variation and change in morphosyntactic processes, and correlations between textual-discursive genre, style, norm(s) and linguistic variation/change. She was editor-in-chief of Alfa: Revista de Linguística, from 2016 to 2020.

Angelica Rodrigues currently holds the position of Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences and Letters at Unesp-Campus de Araraquara, where she works at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and holds the positions of Head of the Department of Linguistics, Literature and Classical Letters. She has a degree in Arts from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (1998), a Master's in Linguistics from the State University of Campinas (2001) and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the State University of Campinas (2006) with an internship (PhD Sandwich) at the Australian National University (2003-2004). She held an internship abroad (post-doctoral) at the University of Amsterdam between 2017 and 2018. Between March and July 2018, she performed an internship (post-doctoral) at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.  She has experience in the field of Portuguese and Brazilian Sign Language-Libras, with an emphasis on Linguistics, working mainly on the following subjects: sign language linguistics, sociolinguistics, linguistic variation and change, grammaticalization, syntax and descriptive studies of sign languages ​​(Brazilian Sign Language - Libras).