In this text, we present a review of the lecture
Neste texto, apresentamos uma resenha da conferência
One of the human innate capacities is the evolutionary capacity. Men are naturally creative and innovative. We always innovate and evolve. These advances bring gains for all humans and for a variety of scientific knowledge fields. As science, Linguistics has also greatly evolved, since the neo-grammarians to the experimental studies of linguistic processing, with the availability of new theories and methodologies.
The accomplishments and advances in the last years in Phonology, explained by the Professor and Doctor Thaís Cristófaro Silva
Thaís Cristófaro Silva is a volunteer Professor at the Graduate Program in Linguistic Studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. She is an excellent professional and a reference in the studies of Phonetics and Phonology of Brazilian Portuguese (PB). Besides, she has published numerous articles and books, among which we cite:
In the contextualization of her talk, Cristófaro-Silva stresses the importance of the advances of Phonetics and the incorporation of other aspects that would generally be left aside as the relationship between Language and Brain, under a cognitive perspective. This scientific advance directly contributed to the reflections of Phonology as field of knowledge.
The author exemplifies these gains with Bryan Gick, Ian Wilson and Donald Derrick’s book
Cristófaro-Silva argues that the evolution of Phonetics made phoneticians re-think their practices with a new proposal of incorporating acoustic analysis and experimental methodologies. For the author, one of these advances was the invention of PRAAT, a free software that enables the acoustic analysis of speech data (BOERSMA; WEENINK, 2017
Based on the researcher’s own experience, if it were only possible to view a spectrogram of speech overnight, today we have new technologies and even new methodologies that automated the process. There have been advances other than PRAAT in the analysis with the use of video to capture the speech (FREITAG
The evolution in Phonetics towards an Experimental Phonetics is, then, observed. For Cristófaro-Silva, this direction, as a consequence, impacted the understanding of Phonology. As new methodologies are applied, new questions are also made.
Another advance mentioned by the author concerns the elaboration of a symbolic apparatus able to represent and transcribe the features of sound production of natural languages, as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), elaborated by the International Phonetic Association and based on the Latin Alphabet. Despite its importance, according to Cristófaro-Silva, the representations of IPA are violable for being generally confused with representations of the written system and with phonological representations. This confusion is understandable, since the evidences show that people store linguistic material with a detailed and rich auditory and motor-sensory code which tends to be unique for each speaker (PAUL, 2011
In order to present the differences of the representations in each one of the systems, Cristófaro-Silva systematized the table below:
Source: FONOLOGIA (2020
PHONETICS | PHONOLOGY | WRITING |
Level of the phones | Level of the phonemes | Level of the letters |
Level concrete/physical | Abstract level | Orthographic level |
Motor processing | Cognitive Processing | Writing process |
Pronounceable | Unpronounceable | Reading |
Performance | Competence | Writing |
Gradient | Discrete | Conventional |
[....] brackets | /.../ transversal bars | Letters |
However, in spite of this consolidation and the symbolic advances of IPA, the transcription norms have not effectively reached classrooms through didactic books. Cirstófaro-Silva discusses a research made with 8 didactic books in which she found distinct patterns for the phonetic and phonological representations: 1) data presented WITHOUT [brackets] or /transversal bars/; 2) data only with /transversal bars/ indicated; 3) phonetic representations presented between /transversal bars/, in the case of dictionaries; 4) the orthographic forms are listed and the corresponding symbol(s) are phonologically indicated; 5) combines orthography and phonetic representation.
The description levels and representations already consolidated are important but are not used in didactic books. According to the author, this happens because there is a symbiosis between Phonetic and Phonology, an unsolved problem that requires much attention due to the confusion that might be caused. For that, Cristófaro-Silva suggests the reading of April Mcmahon’s
The author continues her talk explaining the theoretical evolution and terminologies applied to Phonology. We have, as examples: Phonological Representation; Phonemic Representation; Underlying Representation, of the Generativism; Lexical Representation; Mental Representation, of Usage Models (BYBEE, 2001
These theoretical and terminological changes are important for us to conceive the new and to realize how much the area has evolved. The author resorts to a comparison between the traditional proposal of the Phonology and the Exemplar Model as an example, which is presented in table 2.
Source: Oliveira-Guimarães (2004, p. 40
TRADITIONAL PHONOLOGY | EXEMPLAR MODEL |
Minimalist mental representation | Detailed mental representation |
Separation between Phonetics and Phonology | Inter-relation between Phonetics and Phonology |
A view of Phonology as a grammatical form, with the use of abstraction | Frequency effects stored in long-term memory |
Categorical phonotactic judgment | Gradient effects in phonotactic judgments |
Lexicon separated from the phonological grammar | Words as locus of the categorization |
Treating Grammar and Language as a complex system, a single representation, proposed by Traditional Phonology, raises a series of problems to deal with the dynamicity which is inherent to the system itself. Therefore, it is necessary to think about alternative forms, as Experimental Phonology or Laboratory Phonology, an approach initially proposed by Pierrehumbert, Beckman and Ladd (2000
In order to evidence the methodological advances, the author brings an overview of phonological phenomena of Brazilian Portuguese (PB) and cites the process of nasalization, which happens when a vowel is followed by a nasal consonant (CÂMARA JR., 2009[1970]
Finally, the author describes the main accomplishments of Phonology in Brazil and draws attention to the linguistic diversity in Brazil, emphasizing the minority languages and the description of sound systems of indigenous languages. In addition to that, the lecturer highlights the professional qualification that stemmed by the opening of a variety of graduate programs in Linguistics, Laboratories, Research Groups, and events on Phonetics and Phonology in numerous Brazilian states.
Despite all the theoretical and methodological advance in Phonology, we need to keep evolving and go one step ahead. We have scientific and technological maturity to think about new methodological proposals and new questions to our research and linguistic descriptions. One of these advances, according to Cristófaro-Silva, would be formalizing a proposal of integration with cognitive sciences, as in other countries, which may deepen our understanding of human language production. We shall move ahead, then!