Abstract
This chapter studies the Brazilian Portuguese keywords subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’. Despite formal similarities, the English cityscape word suburb conveys a very different concept than subúrbio. In dictionaries, the cultural semantics of the words subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’ is largely missing. This is unfortunate since the semantic richness of these words shed light on Brazilian discourses of urbanism and on a culturally-specific way of categorising people in the urban space. Using evidence from a range of different Brazilian discourses and speakers’ reflections on the two words, I propose a semantic explication for each, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) to adequately account for the complex and cultural meaning of the words – seen from an insider’s perspective.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Cultural Keywords in Discourse |
| Place of publication | Amsterdam |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Publication date | 19 Oct 2017 |
| Pages | 157-182 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789027256829 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789027265470 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- social categories
- Brazilian Portuguese
- cityscape terms
- cultural keywords
- NSM