Situação da língua portuguesa em Cabo Verde ao longo dos séculos e na atualidade – contextos escolhidos

Abstract

In this paper, we intend to make some observations about the changes that can be observed in Cape Verde’s language policy, with a special focus on the social use and prestige attributed to European Portuguese (EP) over the centuries. The analysis concentrates on two chosen contexts in which the EP currently has a certain vitality: formal education and religious services. This part also includes the results of an individual sociolinguistic project carried out in situ, in which an oral corpus of 150 interviews with adult informants from the islands of São Vicente and Santiago (89 women and 61 men) was collected, with their level of education, frequency of exposure to EP, and age as sociolinguistic variables. The methodology used to analyse the data is quantitative, and the focus of the questions is put on the current situation of the EP as a result of the historical and social processes previously described.