“If you think capixabas don’t have an accent, say ‘arroz’ real quick”: diphthongization in the capixaba accent

Abstract

This study investigated the process of diphthongization with the glide /j/ in stressed syllables ending in /S/ in speech data from the Metropolitan Region of Vitória (RMGV), based on the theoretical-methodological framework of Variationist Theory (Weinreich; Labov; Herzog, 2006 [1968]; Labov, 1972, 1994) and supported by acoustic phonetics. The corpus consists of the Duarte Sample (2025), comprising seven informants stratified by sex (men and women), age group (Group A: 22 to 35 years old; Group C: over 60 years old), and education level (high school and university graduates). The controlled variables included: target segment nucleus vowel, stress position, style, sex, age group, and education (fixed effect variables), as well as lexical item and informant (random effect variables). Results indicated a 35.5% application rate, close to the rates reported in the literature for the Rio de Janeiro dialect. Statistically significant variables included: age group, with diphthongization being more frequent among younger speakers; stress position, prevalent in stressed monosyllables and oxytone words; nucleus vowel, where the high-mid front vowel favors the phenomenon compared to the low-mid back vowel; and style, as reading discourages diphthongization. The data suggest that diphthongization in the RMGV is a process influenced by stylistic monitoring, word stress position, the quality of the lexical item’s vowel, and the speakers’ age group.
Keywords: Diphthongization. Capixaba variety. Phonetic-phonological variation.