Variação linguística no continuo oralidade-letramento: a questão do destravamento silábico

Abstract

This research investigates the existence and/or persistence of non-conventional spellings resulting from the phenomenon of syllabic unlocking in the writing of 6th and 9th-grade students. The study observes, through a comparative analysis of these two groups, the percentage of occurrence regarding the deletion of graphemes representing lateral and nasal consonants, rhotics, and glides in syllable coda position. Additionally, it analyzes the impact that socioeconomic profiles may exert on the adoption of more monitored linguistic styles in writing. The corpus consists of activities proposed to students in the 6th and 9th grades of a public municipal school in Lauro de Freitas, Bahia. Considering that syllabic unlocking corresponds to the deletion of consonants and semivowels in post-vocalic position, the study mapped occurrences of the deletion of graphemes <l>, <m>, <n>, <r>, <u>, and <i> in this environment. The research is primarily anchored in theoretical discussions of Phonology (Collischonn, 2014; Selkirk, 1982; Seara, Nunes & Lazzarotto-Volcão, 2011; 2015) and Language Acquisition (Del Ré, 2010; Lamprecht, 2004), and also considers recent discussions in the field of Educational Sociolinguistics (Bortoni-Ricardo, 2004; 2005; Mollica, 2003; 2014). The research consisted of a descriptive-interpretative study in which the most frequent cases of syllabic unlocking were comparatively observed in the writing data from the 6th and 9th grades. Quantitative analysis was conducted using R software (R Core Team, 2025) via the R-studio interface. Data were generated from written texts and targeted activities developed by the participating students during school lessons. With this data, the objective of the study was to: i) identify and categorize orthographic deviations motivated by syllabic unlocking; ii) evaluate whether advancement in years of school literacy corresponds to a reduction in nonconventional spellings; and to iii) Investigate the impact of the student's socioeconomic profile on the appropriation of monitored writing styles. The main results indicated that: the four types of syllable unlocking predicted in the research were observed in both groups of students; the deletion of the grapheme <r> in the final coda was the most recurring event; verbs constitute the grammatical class most favorable to unlocking; advancement in school grade reduces cases of syllabic coda deletion; however, age-grade distortion is unfavorable to the reduction of unconventional spellings through syllabic unlocking. Regarding the socioeconomic profile, the results indicate that, regardless of financial conditions, inclusion in literacy practices favors the adoption of more monitored writing styles. The interpretation of the data also infers that parents with higher levels of education provide more socioeconomic activities for their children, and this is reflected in the reduction of variable phenomena in writing.