Denominations for "mulatto" in the Linguistic Atlas of Mato Grosso from Sul:

lexical-cultural aspects

Abstract

This paper analyzes, under lexical-semantical and cultural perspectives, the lexical units registered in the Letter QSL 0237.a – mulatto. of the Linguistic Atlas of Mato Grosso do Sul– ALMS (2007) as a designation of “people whose skin is not very dark because only the mother or the father is black”. For the execution of the study, the following methodological path was followed: definition of the source and corpus, followed by consultation of the ALMS and respective survey of the mapped lexical data. After that, the data were quantified and organized for further analysis under the Lexical Theory and Anthropology Linguistic perspectives. The universe of catalogued data gathered lexical units such as moreno, mestiço, pardo, negro, misto, tostado, bugre, caboclo moreno, morena canela, café com leite, meio branco, preto, mameluco, bugre, totaling 21 lexical units. The register of the lexical form moreno claro, with 7,81% of occurrence, for example, indicates that the use of a term considered soothing (moreno) is reinforced by another (claro), with greater softening load. From the analysis undertaken, it might be deduced that such units, already part of the lexical repertoire of speakers from Mato Grosso do Sul, in addition to naming the human type described by the question, started to indicate social representations, which resulted in traces of cultural appropriation. The analysis demonstrated aspects of the existing relationship between linguistic and extralinguistic factors in the vocabulary of the Mato Grosso do Sul informants examined, validating the argument that language is a dynamic tool of local culture and that the linguistic norm, particularly the lexical, expresses significant aspects related to the values conveyed by the society.