SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES ON DIALECTAL CONTACT: CONTRIBUTIONS OF VARIEM AND RESEARCH AGENDA

The speech of migrants in dialectal contact situations has been overlooked in variationist sociolinguistic studies, which tend to focus on the speech of the locally born and raised. Taking into account population mobility and the sociodemographic reality in many Brazilian communities, this article aims to (i) present works developed within the Laboratory VARIEM (UNICAMP) on the speech of Northeastern migrants living in the state of Sao Paulo, which, taken together, allow for generalizations on the role of Gender, Age of Arrival, and Length of Residence in processes of language variation and change in the speech of migrants; and (ii) map the gaps and pending questions in order to outline a research agenda for sociolinguistic studies on dialectal contact. We argue that the analysis of migrants' speech, sociodemographic mobility and dialectal contact is necessary for a more comprehensive Theory of Language Variation and Change (Weinreich et al, 2006 [1968]). Although the topic raises a number of challenges, the variationist methodology of linguistic analysis is particularly suitable for observing the complex patterns of language variation in migrants' speech.