At the very heart of variationist Sociolinguistics is the notion that language has an underlying structure, and that this structure varies according to external linguistic variables such as age, gender, social class, community membership, nationality, and so on. Specifically, this study examines variation in initial and final segments, as well as sentence final particles in Cantonese in Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR). Results of this study indicate that external linguistic constraint categories play a role in the realization of how and when initial and final segments, as well as sentence final particles are used in Macau Cantonese. Finally, this dissertation illustrates that pragmatic functions in the systematic use of linguistic variables requires explanations that draw from variationist sociolinguistic research that has an ethnographic and interpretive basis. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Sociolinguistics)

Le créole afro-portugais de Casamance reste encore méconnu. La présente étude constitue la première description des pratiques langagières des créolophones casamançais. Elle est fondée sur un corpus de première main recueilli lors de discussions spontanées entre des locuteurs créolophones dans des villes multilingues : Dakar, Thiès et Ziguinchor. Dans ce corpus, les principales langues en contact sont essentiellement le créole casamançais, le français et le wolof. Cette thèse décrit les changements induits par ce contact dans le corpus, notamment le repérage temporel et les phénomènes touchant spécifiquement les groupes nominaux (déterminants et génitifs). L’étude de ces champs m’a permis de constater que des éléments grammaticaux et lexicaux sont fournis à la fois par l’ensemble de ces langues. Ce cas de figure n'est pas souvent pris en compte dans les approches théoriques du contact de langues, lesquelles proposent souvent une séparation fonctionnelle des langues fondée sur une dichotomie entre langue matrice et langue insérée, et tendent à ignorer les situations de contact impliquant plus de deux langues. Cette thèse constitue une contribution à l’étude du contact de langues et permet en particulier de porter un regard neuf sur une situation de contact trilingue, impliquant une langue créole et deux autres langues qui en sont typologiquement éloignées. La prise en compte d’une telle configuration revêt un caractère particulièrement novateur dans le domaine des études créoles, où les chercheurs intéressés par le contact de langues se concentrent surtout sur des situations de contact entre les créoles et leurs langues lexificatrices respectives. / Casamancese Afro-Portuguese Creole is still largely unknown. The present study is the first description of the language practices of Casamance Creole speakers. The study is based on a first-hand corpus collected during spontaneous discussions among Creole speakers in multilingual cities: Dakar, Thies and Ziguinchor. In this corpus, the main languages in contact are the Casamancese Creole, French and Wolof.This dissertation describes the changes induced by this contact in the corpus, especially the temporal deixis and phenomena specifically affecting noun groups (such as determiners and genitives). The study of these domains has led me to realize that all three languages involved both grammatical and lexical elements are provided by all these languages.Such a scenario is generally not taken into consideration in the theoretical approaches to language contact, which often posit a functional separation of the languages involved based on a dichotomy between matrix language and embedded language, and tend to ignore contact situations involving more than two languages.This dissertation is therefore a contribution to the study of language contact; more specifically, it allows for the possibility to take a fresh look at a trilingual contact situation involving a Creole language and two other languages typologically distant from the former. The inclusion of such a configuration is particularly innovative in the domain of Creole studies, where researchers interested in contact languages focus mainly on situations of contact between Creoles and their respective lexifier languages

Esta pesquisa apresenta análises sobre avaliação, produção e percepção linguística no português paulistano, por meio do exame de quatro variáveis sociolinguísticas: a realização de /e/ nasal como monotongo [e] ou ditongo [ej] (como em fazenda); a pronúncia de /r/ em coda silábica como tepe [R] ou retroflexo [õ] (como em porta); a concordância nominal de número (como em as casas/as casa); e a concordância verbal de primeira e de terceira pessoa do plural (como em nós fomos/nós foi, eles foram/eles foi). O objetivo central é analisar, em uma comunidade amplamente heterogênea de um ponto de vista sociodemográfico, as inter-relações entre a expressão de identidades sociais através de usos linguísticos e a possível influência dos significados sociais desses usos em processos de variação e mudança linguística. Para tanto, analisou-se qualitativa e quantitativamente uma amostra contemporânea do português paulistano, composta de 118 entrevistas sociolinguísticas com falantes nativos, à luz dos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da Sociolinguística Variacionista (Labov, 2006 [1966], 2008 [1972]). Tais análises compreendem o encaixamento linguístico e social de cada variável, bem como seu encaixamento simultâneo na fala de cada indivíduo. Além disso, examinaram-se percepções sobre as variantes de (-r), com base na técnica de estímulos pareados (Lambert et al., 1960), a fim de melhor compreender os mecanismos subjacentes à associação de certos significados sociais ao emprego de diferentes formas linguísticas. Os resultados mostram que, embora as correlações entre as quatro variáveis sociolinguísticas e variáveis sociais sejam bastante semelhantes entre si (todas se correlacionam com o Sexo/Gênero, a Classe Social e o Nível de Escolaridade dos falantes), há diferentes tendências dentro da comunidade por exemplo, mudança em direção à variante ditongada [ej]; padrões divergentes quanto ao emprego de (-r) por parte de jovens de diferentes classes sociais; variação estável das concordâncias nominal e verbal em regiões periféricas e mudança em direção à variante padrão em regiões centrais. Para compreendê-los, o exame de seus significados sociais é fundamental. Argumenta-se que [ej] tem se difundido rápida e unidirecionalmente pelo fato de se constituir um marcador (Labov, 2008 [1972]) para paulistanos, que não revelam ter consciência da variável, tampouco apresentam um discurso metalinguístico sobre suas variantes. O forte favorecimento do retroflexo entre jovens de classes baixas foi desencadeado por uma reinterpretação de seu significado social como uma variante local e de prestígio, devido à presença maciça de migrantes do Norte/Nordeste, cuja variante fricativa é relativamente mais estigmatizada na comunidade. Ao mesmo tempo, ainda que o encaixamento social das concordâncias nominal e verbal seja bastante semelhante, a marca zero de concordância nominal (as casa) goza de maior vitalidade por indexicalizar significados como masculinidade, paulistanidade e morador da Mooca. Não obstante as diferentes tendências que se verificam na comunidade, os padrões de encaixamento das variáveis linguísticas se reproduzem sistematicamente na fala de cada indivíduo, o que permite caracterizar os paulistanos como uma única comunidade de fala (Labov, 2006 [1966]), que compartilha normas de produção e de avaliação linguística. De acordo com o teste de percepções, os moradores da cidade também são consistentes em suas reações subjetivas a variantes de (-r). Demonstra-se adicionalmente que a coesão dialetal é promovida não por amplas categorias sociais como Sexo/Gênero ou Faixas Etárias, mas pelo princípio mais fundamental de densidade de comunicação (Gumperz, 1971b,a). / This study examines linguistic evaluation, production, and perception in São Paulo Portuguese, through analyses of four sociolinguistic variables: the realization of nasal /e/ as a monophthong [e] or as a diphthong [ej] (as in fazenda farm); the realization of coda /r/ as a tap [R] or as a retroflex [õ] (as in porta door); nominal number agreement (as in as casas/as casa the houses); and first person plural and third person plural verb agreement (as in nós fomos/nós foi we went, eles foram/eles foi they went). The main goal is to investigate the inter-relation between the expression of social identities through language uses and the possible impact of social meanings on processes of language variation and change, in a highly diverse and heterogeneous community. Based on the theory and methods of Variationist Sociolinguistics (Labov, 2006 [1966], 2008 [1972]), each variables linguistic and social embedding, as well as their simultaneous embedding in individual speakers speech, were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively in 118 sociolinguistic interviews with native Paulistano speakers. In addition, perceptions on the variants of (-r) were examined through an experiment using the Matched Guise Technique (Lambert et al., 1960), aimed at describing the mechanisms underlying the association of certain social meanings with different language forms. The results show that, in spite of the similarity between the social embedding of the four variables (all of them are correlated with speakers sex/gender, social class, and level of education), there are different trends within the community for instance, change towards (e) diphthongization; divergent patterns regarding (-r) in the speech of younger speakers of different social classes; stable variation in nominal and verbal agreement in peripheral areas but change towards the prestige variant in central areas. The explanation for these patterns is related to the variants social meanings. It is argued that [ej] has spread rapidly and unidirectionally because it is a marker (Labov, 2008 [1972]) for Paulistanos, who are not aware of the variable and do not present an elaborate metalinguistic discourse on its variants. The fact that retroflex /r/ is strongly favored by working class youth may be attributed to a reinterpretation of its social meaning, due to the extensive presence of migrants from the Northern and Northeastern regions of the country, whose /r/ realization as a fricative is relatively more stigmatized in the community. At the same time, although nominal and verbal agreement are very similarly stratified, the nonstandard variant of the former (as casa the houses) exhibits greater vitality as it indexes masculinities and local identities with the city and with Mooca, one of its most traditional neighborhoods. Despite different trends by different social groups in the community, the embedding of the linguistic variables is systematically reproduced in each speakers speech, which allows for the characterization of São Paulo as a single speech community (Labov, 2006 [1966]) in that its native speakers share norms of use and evaluation of the variants. According to the perception test, the city inhabitants are also consistent in their subjective reactions to the variants of (-r). It is shown that such social cohesion is promoted not by census social categories such as sex/gender or age, but by the more fundamental principle of density of communication (Gumperz, 1971b,a).

This dissertation investigates the use of the subjunctive in completive clauses governed by verbs in Italian, both synchronically and diachronically, and in Vulgar Latin. By making use of the tools provided by the Variationist Sociolinguistic framework (Labov 1972, 1994), the current study sheds light on the underlying conditioning on variability using actual usage and speech-surrogate data. Contemporary actual speech data comes from LIP (De Mauro et al. 1993) and C-ORAL-ROM (Cresti & Moneglia 2005) corpora, providing spontaneous discourse in casual and careful speech as well as sub-sample divisions representative of geographical variation. In order to measure any changes in the underlying conditioning on subjunctive selection, a diachronic benchmark is established: a corpus of speech-like surrogates of 16th to 20th century Italian, COHI (Corpus of Historical Italian), and a corpus of Vulgar Latin (Cena Trimalchionis, from the Satyricon by Petronius). The subjunctives were extracted in adherence to the principle of accountability (Labov 1972), using the method developed by Poplack (1992): every complement clause governed by a matrix verb (governor) that triggered the subjunctive at least once was included. This method enables us to circumvent the issue of the lack of consensus in the literature on exactly which contexts, i.e. verbs and/or meanings, should trigger the subjunctive in discourse. This issue surfaces as well from the meta-linguistic analysis of a compendium of 58 Italian grammars and treaties (CSGI, Collezione Storica di Grammatiche Italiane), constructed for the purpose of this research. A series of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors proposed by formal and prescriptive literature are operationalized and tested against the corpora of both Italian and Vulgar Latin, in order to ascertain the nature of variability in discourse: i.e. whether the use of the subjunctive is semantically motivated, productive in speech or undergoing desemanticization and lexicalization. Despite widespread assumption of a change that occurred after the political and the subsequent linguistic unification of Italy, i.e. that the subjunctive has lost ground in favour of the indicative when it was supposedly used categorically in the past, quantitative and statistical evidence shows that subjunctive selection is largely determined by lexical identity of the governor as well as embedded suppletive forms of essere, and that this pattern has been operative at least since the 16th century. On a more socio-linguistic aspect, this study confirms the linguistic prestige that the subjunctive has acquired in contemporary speech, being selected with a wider range of infrequent and singleton governors by highly educated speakers. Also, the highly lexicalized pattern on variability was found to be largely shared amongst the four main urban centres of Florence, Milan, Rome, and Naples, thus countering the assumption of divergent linguistic behaviour between northern and southern varieties of Italian. The study also shows that despite the significant time span targeted, no evidence of desemanticization has been found. Likewise, the variationist analysis on the Vulgar Latin subjunctive shows that subjunctive choice was already largely determined by, and restricted, to a few governors, identified as ‘volitive’ and ‘emotive’ matrices. These governors remained strong predictors for the selection of the subjunctive in Italian as well, suggesting that this lexical pattern has been transferred and consistently retained in the daughter language.

洪若震. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 273-285). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 273-285). / Hong Ruozhen.

Esta pesquisa apresenta análises sobre avaliação, produção e percepção linguística no português paulistano, por meio do exame de quatro variáveis sociolinguísticas: a realização de /e/ nasal como monotongo [e] ou ditongo [ej] (como em fazenda); a pronúncia de /r/ em coda silábica como tepe [R] ou retroflexo [õ] (como em porta); a concordância nominal de número (como em as casas/as casa); e a concordância verbal de primeira e de terceira pessoa do plural (como em nós fomos/nós foi, eles foram/eles foi). O objetivo central é analisar, em uma comunidade amplamente heterogênea de um ponto de vista sociodemográfico, as inter-relações entre a expressão de identidades sociais através de usos linguísticos e a possível influência dos significados sociais desses usos em processos de variação e mudança linguística. Para tanto, analisou-se qualitativa e quantitativamente uma amostra contemporânea do português paulistano, composta de 118 entrevistas sociolinguísticas com falantes nativos, à luz dos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da Sociolinguística Variacionista (Labov, 2006 [1966], 2008 [1972]). Tais análises compreendem o encaixamento linguístico e social de cada variável, bem como seu encaixamento simultâneo na fala de cada indivíduo. Além disso, examinaram-se percepções sobre as variantes de (-r), com base na técnica de estímulos pareados (Lambert et al., 1960), a fim de melhor compreender os mecanismos subjacentes à associação de certos significados sociais ao emprego de diferentes formas linguísticas. Os resultados mostram que, embora as correlações entre as quatro variáveis sociolinguísticas e variáveis sociais sejam bastante semelhantes entre si (todas se correlacionam com o Sexo/Gênero, a Classe Social e o Nível de Escolaridade dos falantes), há diferentes tendências dentro da comunidade por exemplo, mudança em direção à variante ditongada [ej]; padrões divergentes quanto ao emprego de (-r) por parte de jovens de diferentes classes sociais; variação estável das concordâncias nominal e verbal em regiões periféricas e mudança em direção à variante padrão em regiões centrais. Para compreendê-los, o exame de seus significados sociais é fundamental. Argumenta-se que [ej] tem se difundido rápida e unidirecionalmente pelo fato de se constituir um marcador (Labov, 2008 [1972]) para paulistanos, que não revelam ter consciência da variável, tampouco apresentam um discurso metalinguístico sobre suas variantes. O forte favorecimento do retroflexo entre jovens de classes baixas foi desencadeado por uma reinterpretação de seu significado social como uma variante local e de prestígio, devido à presença maciça de migrantes do Norte/Nordeste, cuja variante fricativa é relativamente mais estigmatizada na comunidade. Ao mesmo tempo, ainda que o encaixamento social das concordâncias nominal e verbal seja bastante semelhante, a marca zero de concordância nominal (as casa) goza de maior vitalidade por indexicalizar significados como masculinidade, paulistanidade e morador da Mooca. Não obstante as diferentes tendências que se verificam na comunidade, os padrões de encaixamento das variáveis linguísticas se reproduzem sistematicamente na fala de cada indivíduo, o que permite caracterizar os paulistanos como uma única comunidade de fala (Labov, 2006 [1966]), que compartilha normas de produção e de avaliação linguística. De acordo com o teste de percepções, os moradores da cidade também são consistentes em suas reações subjetivas a variantes de (-r). Demonstra-se adicionalmente que a coesão dialetal é promovida não por amplas categorias sociais como Sexo/Gênero ou Faixas Etárias, mas pelo princípio mais fundamental de densidade de comunicação (Gumperz, 1971b,a). / This study examines linguistic evaluation, production, and perception in São Paulo Portuguese, through analyses of four sociolinguistic variables: the realization of nasal /e/ as a monophthong [e] or as a diphthong [ej] (as in fazenda farm); the realization of coda /r/ as a tap [R] or as a retroflex [õ] (as in porta door); nominal number agreement (as in as casas/as casa the houses); and first person plural and third person plural verb agreement (as in nós fomos/nós foi we went, eles foram/eles foi they went). The main goal is to investigate the inter-relation between the expression of social identities through language uses and the possible impact of social meanings on processes of language variation and change, in a highly diverse and heterogeneous community. Based on the theory and methods of Variationist Sociolinguistics (Labov, 2006 [1966], 2008 [1972]), each variables linguistic and social embedding, as well as their simultaneous embedding in individual speakers speech, were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively in 118 sociolinguistic interviews with native Paulistano speakers. In addition, perceptions on the variants of (-r) were examined through an experiment using the Matched Guise Technique (Lambert et al., 1960), aimed at describing the mechanisms underlying the association of certain social meanings with different language forms. The results show that, in spite of the similarity between the social embedding of the four variables (all of them are correlated with speakers sex/gender, social class, and level of education), there are different trends within the community for instance, change towards (e) diphthongization; divergent patterns regarding (-r) in the speech of younger speakers of different social classes; stable variation in nominal and verbal agreement in peripheral areas but change towards the prestige variant in central areas. The explanation for these patterns is related to the variants social meanings. It is argued that [ej] has spread rapidly and unidirectionally because it is a marker (Labov, 2008 [1972]) for Paulistanos, who are not aware of the variable and do not present an elaborate metalinguistic discourse on its variants. The fact that retroflex /r/ is strongly favored by working class youth may be attributed to a reinterpretation of its social meaning, due to the extensive presence of migrants from the Northern and Northeastern regions of the country, whose /r/ realization as a fricative is relatively more stigmatized in the community. At the same time, although nominal and verbal agreement are very similarly stratified, the nonstandard variant of the former (as casa the houses) exhibits greater vitality as it indexes masculinities and local identities with the city and with Mooca, one of its most traditional neighborhoods. Despite different trends by different social groups in the community, the embedding of the linguistic variables is systematically reproduced in each speakers speech, which allows for the characterization of São Paulo as a single speech community (Labov, 2006 [1966]) in that its native speakers share norms of use and evaluation of the variants. According to the perception test, the city inhabitants are also consistent in their subjective reactions to the variants of (-r). It is shown that such social cohesion is promoted not by census social categories such as sex/gender or age, but by the more fundamental principle of density of communication (Gumperz, 1971b,a).

Le créole afro-portugais de Casamance reste encore méconnu. La présente étude constitue la première description des pratiques langagières des créolophones casamançais. Elle est fondée sur un corpus de première main recueilli lors de discussions spontanées entre des locuteurs créolophones dans des villes multilingues : Dakar, Thiès et Ziguinchor. Dans ce corpus, les principales langues en contact sont essentiellement le créole casamançais, le français et le wolof. Cette thèse décrit les changements induits par ce contact dans le corpus, notamment le repérage temporel et les phénomènes touchant spécifiquement les groupes nominaux (déterminants et génitifs). L’étude de ces champs m’a permis de constater que des éléments grammaticaux et lexicaux sont fournis à la fois par l’ensemble de ces langues. Ce cas de figure n'est pas souvent pris en compte dans les approches théoriques du contact de langues, lesquelles proposent souvent une séparation fonctionnelle des langues fondée sur une dichotomie entre langue matrice et langue insérée, et tendent à ignorer les situations de contact impliquant plus de deux langues. Cette thèse constitue une contribution à l’étude du contact de langues et permet en particulier de porter un regard neuf sur une situation de contact trilingue, impliquant une langue créole et deux autres langues qui en sont typologiquement éloignées. La prise en compte d’une telle configuration revêt un caractère particulièrement novateur dans le domaine des études créoles, où les chercheurs intéressés par le contact de langues se concentrent surtout sur des situations de contact entre les créoles et leurs langues lexificatrices respectives. / Casamancese Afro-Portuguese Creole is still largely unknown. The present study is the first description of the language practices of Casamance Creole speakers. The study is based on a first-hand corpus collected during spontaneous discussions among Creole speakers in multilingual cities: Dakar, Thies and Ziguinchor. In this corpus, the main languages in contact are the Casamancese Creole, French and Wolof.This dissertation describes the changes induced by this contact in the corpus, especially the temporal deixis and phenomena specifically affecting noun groups (such as determiners and genitives). The study of these domains has led me to realize that all three languages involved both grammatical and lexical elements are provided by all these languages.Such a scenario is generally not taken into consideration in the theoretical approaches to language contact, which often posit a functional separation of the languages involved based on a dichotomy between matrix language and embedded language, and tend to ignore contact situations involving more than two languages.This dissertation is therefore a contribution to the study of language contact; more specifically, it allows for the possibility to take a fresh look at a trilingual contact situation involving a Creole language and two other languages typologically distant from the former. The inclusion of such a configuration is particularly innovative in the domain of Creole studies, where researchers interested in contact languages focus mainly on situations of contact between Creoles and their respective lexifier languages

Esta pesquisa ocupa-se em investigar, à luz da Teoria da Variação laboviana, o emprego de tepe em lugar de vibrante em onset silábico na fala da comunidade bilíngue (português-italiano) de Flores da Cunha (RS), alternância que não se verifica na fala de monolíngues-português. Utilizaram-se dados de dois bancos, VARSUL e BDSer, levantados de entrevistas realizadas em 1990 e 2009, o que possibilitou fazer um estudo em tempo real. A análise da fala de 40 informantes, 20 de cada banco, revelou um decréscimo na frequência total de aplicação da regra: 41% nos dados do VARSUL, 31% nos do BDSer, indício de regressão da regra. Na análise em tempo real, estudo de tendência, observou-se semelhança no papel favorecedor ou desfavorecedor das variáveis controladas, exceto no que diz respeito à variável Idade. O estudo de painel mostrou que os informantes diminuíram a aplicação da regra com o passar dos anos, o que contraria a expectativa de estabilidade do padrão linguístico da fala adulta. / This is a research about the use of tap where a trill is expected in Brazilian Portuguese, which does not occur in the speech of monolinguals, but can be verified in the speech of Portuguese-Italian bilinguals who live in the city of Flores da Cunha (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil). The analysis follows the Theory of Language Variation, by William Labov. The data come from two different sources, VARSUL and BDSer data banks, which have sociolinguistic interviews recorded in 1990 and 2009. This fact enabled us to carry out a real time study. The analysis of the speech of 40 informants, 20 from each bank, showed a decrease in the total frequency of rule application: 41% in the speech of VARSUL informants, 31% in the speech of BDSer informants, a sign of rule regression. The real time analysis, tendency study, showed that the role of the variables under control has not changed along 20 years, except the role of the variable Age. The pannel study showed a decrease in rule application by the three informants studied. This goes against the expectation of a stable linguistic behavior in adult speech.

O fenômeno linguístico em questão é a variação das consoantes plosivas bilabiais: o desvozeamento das plosivas vozeadas (trabalho~trapalho) e o vozeamento das plosivas desvozeadas (pudim~budim) em português, na fala de bilíngues português-alemão. A comunidade de fala sob investigação é Glória, localizado na zona rural de Estrela, uma cidade fundada por imigrantes alemães no século XIX, no estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Vinte e quatro entrevistas sociolinguísticas forneceram dados para a investigação. Os dados foram analisados quantitativamente com os programas computacionais do pacote VARBRUL, versão GoldVarb X, a fim de verificar os fatores linguísticos e extralinguísticos que condicionam a realização das plosivas. A frequência total de aplicação de regra é baixa. O controle da variável idade sugere que o processo tende a desaparecer nos próximos anos. O processo é condicionado por informantes velhos, mulheres, bilíngues que realizam práticas sociais quase exclusivamente em Glória. A análise da rede social pessoal dos informantes mostrou que ela é densa e multiplexa. Apesar de sua densidade e multiplexidade, os informantes centrais na rede, idosos, não difundem a regra variável a seus contatos, jovens que trabalham e estudam em áreas urbanas, onde a aplicação da regra variável de plosivas é raro. / The linguistic phenomenon in question is the variation of the bilabial plosive consonants: the devoicing of the voiced plosives (trabalho~trapalho) and the voicing of the voiceless plosives (pudim~budim) in Portuguese, in the speech of Portuguese-German bilinguals. The speech community under investigation is Glória, located in the countryside of Estrela, a city founded by German immigrants in the XIX century in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Twenty four sociolinguistic interviews provided data for the investigation. The data were quantitatively analyzed with the computational programs of the VARBRUL package, in their GoldVarb X version, in order to verify the linguistic and extralinguistic factors which constrain the realization of the plosives. The total frequency of rule application is low. The control of variable Age suggests that the process tends to disappear in the years coming. The process is conditioned by old informants, women, bilinguals which perform social practices almost exclusively in Glória. The analysis of the personal social network of the informants showed that it is dense and multiplex. Despite of its density and multiplexity, old informants do not diffuse the variable rule to their contacts in the net, the young informants who work and study in urban areas where the application of the variable rule of plosives is rare.

O fenômeno linguístico em questão é a variação das consoantes plosivas bilabiais: o desvozeamento das plosivas vozeadas (trabalho~trapalho) e o vozeamento das plosivas desvozeadas (pudim~budim) em português, na fala de bilíngues português-alemão. A comunidade de fala sob investigação é Glória, localizado na zona rural de Estrela, uma cidade fundada por imigrantes alemães no século XIX, no estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Vinte e quatro entrevistas sociolinguísticas forneceram dados para a investigação. Os dados foram analisados quantitativamente com os programas computacionais do pacote VARBRUL, versão GoldVarb X, a fim de verificar os fatores linguísticos e extralinguísticos que condicionam a realização das plosivas. A frequência total de aplicação de regra é baixa. O controle da variável idade sugere que o processo tende a desaparecer nos próximos anos. O processo é condicionado por informantes velhos, mulheres, bilíngues que realizam práticas sociais quase exclusivamente em Glória. A análise da rede social pessoal dos informantes mostrou que ela é densa e multiplexa. Apesar de sua densidade e multiplexidade, os informantes centrais na rede, idosos, não difundem a regra variável a seus contatos, jovens que trabalham e estudam em áreas urbanas, onde a aplicação da regra variável de plosivas é raro. / The linguistic phenomenon in question is the variation of the bilabial plosive consonants: the devoicing of the voiced plosives (trabalho~trapalho) and the voicing of the voiceless plosives (pudim~budim) in Portuguese, in the speech of Portuguese-German bilinguals. The speech community under investigation is Glória, located in the countryside of Estrela, a city founded by German immigrants in the XIX century in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Twenty four sociolinguistic interviews provided data for the investigation. The data were quantitatively analyzed with the computational programs of the VARBRUL package, in their GoldVarb X version, in order to verify the linguistic and extralinguistic factors which constrain the realization of the plosives. The total frequency of rule application is low. The control of variable Age suggests that the process tends to disappear in the years coming. The process is conditioned by old informants, women, bilinguals which perform social practices almost exclusively in Glória. The analysis of the personal social network of the informants showed that it is dense and multiplex. Despite of its density and multiplexity, old informants do not diffuse the variable rule to their contacts in the net, the young informants who work and study in urban areas where the application of the variable rule of plosives is rare.