Estudo comparativo da aquisição do /r/ na posição de onset simples por crianças de dois municípios do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine and to compare the emergence and acquisition of /R/ in simple onset, as well as the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic variables during the acquisition of this phoneme by children who live in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil and Crissiumal, RS, Brazil. The sample consisted of 76 interviews in Crissiumal and 60 interviews in Santa Maria, a total of 136 subjects. The children were aged between 1:6 and 4:2. The speech data from Santa Maria are from a database system which contains speech samples of children with typical phonological development. The database system was created through a research project. To collect data from Crissiumal, the children should observe the thematic drawings, part of the Child s Phonological Assessment (YAVAS; HERNANDORENA; LAMPRECHT, 1991) and they should name the drawings to perceive the way they produce the /R/. The data were analyzed in each age group to have an acquisition profile. After that, for the statistical analyzes related to the linguistic variables preceding and following context, tonicity, number of syllables and word position; and the extralinguistic variables age and sex, the Statistical Program VARBRUL was used. This program is used in quantitative variationist analysis and phonological acquisition. Through the data analysis, it was possible to observe that the /R/ emerges when the children are 2:0 in Santa Maria and when the children are 2:2 in Crissiumal. In Santa Maria the phoneme is acquired when the children are 3:6 in initial onset and 3:4 in medial onset. In Crissiumal the phoneme is acquired when the children are 4:2 in initial onset and 4:0 in medial onset. Besides, in Santa Maria the statistical program selected the linguistic variables following context and number of syllables in initial onset and the extralinguistic variable sex in initial and medial onset. In Crissiumal, the linguistic variable tonicity was selected in initial onset and the variable following context was selected in medial onset. From the collected data, it is possible to verify that the children from Santa Maria acquire the phoneme earlier than the children from Crissiumal. Another relevant aspect is that most linguistic and extralinguistic variables affect the /R/ acquisition in different ways, according to the dialectal variant which is used in the considered place.