Brazil-Portugal: variation and change in the designations of our daily bread

Abstract

A reflection on the interrelations between language, society and culture is developed from the hyponymic designations of the hypernym “bread” in Brazil and Portugal, from a comparative point of view, considering linguistic variation and change, based on recent data. The purpose is to observe occurrences of the semantic field, or rather, of the paradigm of “bread” in both countries, through the linguistic uses of the communities. To aggregate data for comparison, a variety of data in Internet search engines, studies with designations and dictionaries published on both sides of the Portuguese-speaking Atlantic are used. Today, in the digital world, multiple pertinent content with accessible materials and information are available. What linguistic, social, and cultural data do these Brazilian and Portuguese sources of information provide on the lexeme “bread” and its synonyms, or associative derivates? How do they come about? Which Brazilian and Portuguese designations prevail in existing studies? What types of “bread” are referred to in digital content as being Brazilian and/ or Portuguese? What linguistic variation and change are noted in both Brazil and Portugal for a term such as “bread” in the same paradigm, especially for constructions such as “bread x” and “bread of y”? All the motivating questions of the investigation can be reduced to one: What convergent and divergent names exist for the “bread” in Brazil and Portugal, beyond the lexeme “bread” itself?