Serafim da Silva Neto and questioning the contact between languages: some observations on the relation between Linguistics and History

Abstract

This article presents an analysis on the approach employed by Serafim da Silva Neto (1963)on the issue of the contact between languages in the historical formation of the Portuguese Language in Brazil. In the contemporary linguistic literature, criticisms to the author’s work have been frequent, because he reduces the role of indigenous and African languages in the Brazilian Portuguese setting. In this way, we described an overview of how this matter is addressed in the Introdução ao Estudo da Língua Portuguesa no Brasil, thus showing that Silva Neto’s approach on the contact problem is according to the sociocultural analysis model of language proposed by him. In addition, based on the theoretical and methodological assumptions from Linguistic Historiography, we argue that the philologist’s ideas are founded on the dialogues established between linguistic studies and History – or, more specifically, of certain historiographical views –, which constituted a landmark for the author’s tradition