Conceptions of Brazilian and African varieties of Portuguese in primary school textbooks

Abstract

This text identifies, in the eight 7th grade textbooks available on the Portuguese market since 2021, the conceptions about Brazilian and African varieties of Portuguese that emerge from the approach to the geographic variation of the language prescribed by the guiding document for that grade’s curriculum. Following the approach taken by the textbooks, the text is composed of five parts: geographic variation, regional varieties, Portuguese varieties, Brazilian varieties, and African varieties. The main conclusions of this study are that the textbooks represent Portuguese spoken in Brazil, Angola and Mozambique as three homogeneous varieties, unlike Portugal Portuguese, and with several similarities between them, especially in their specific syntax. In the three varieties, the unstressed personal pronouns are placed before the verb, the direct object personal pronoun of the third person tends not to be used, and they all have specific vocabulary. Perhaps for this reason, some textbooks include these three varieties in a single non-European Portuguese category. Despite this approximation, Brazilian Portuguese is described in much more detail than the two African varieties.