Seminários do NTL - Rosa Vallejos-Yopán - 27/03/2026

[Mário André Coelho da Silva]

Prezado/as colegas,

Convidamos todos/as os/as interessados/as a assistirem a palestra de Rosa Vallejos-Yopán nos Seminários do NTL do mês de março de 2026.

A transmissão online será feita pelo canal do NTL no YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NTLindigenas.

Abraços,

Marina Magalhães e Mário Coelho

Seminários do NTL

Dia: 27/03/2026

Hora: 14h30 (horário de Brasília)

Evento híbrido: presencial na Universidade de Brasília (UnB) e remoto, via YouTube

Local: Instituto de Letras da UnB (sala a ser definida)

Link para o canal do YouTube do NTL: https://www.youtube.com/@NTLindigenas

Palestrante:

Rosa Vallejos-Yopán is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico, and currently a Fulbright Scholar at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. Her research focuses on linguistic and cultural diversity in the Amazon, particularly on morphosyntax, linguistic documentation, language contact, and bilingualism. She has published numerous articles on Kukama (Tupi), Secoya (Tukanoan), and Amazonian Spanish

Título da palestra: Attention orientation and grammatical choices among Secoya-Spanish bilinguals

Resumo:

In broad terms, attention is the ability to process specific information in the environment while ignoring competing information. This talk explores whether attention to details around us is mediated by the available linguistic structures speakers have at their disposal. Given that Secoya (Tukanoan) and Spanish (Romance) are very different in their grammars, as a second point, this study explores if our experience with a second language impacts our attention to details. Secoya has several strategies to highlight specific pieces of information. This talk examines three of them: case marking, word order and switch reference. Case marking is optional and largely triggered by information structure factors such as new information and contrast. SOV is the unmarked word order, but other orders are employed to focalize non-subjects. A switch reference system in clause chains tracks topicalized arguments across events. Given that these constructions are pragmatically motivated, are they employed more often to code salient participants in events? To address this question, I collected responses to a visual experiment task from 22 participants in both Secoya and Spanish. There are two main response types to describe the events portrayed in the film: simple clauses and complex clauses. The manipulation of the saliency of participants in the video makes case marking obligatory. Word order in simple-clause responses, and switch reference and argument instantiation in complex-clause responses, are used to code salient participants. As for Spanish, preliminary results indicate that the use of passive constructions in the context of salient patients is rare and mainly limited to specific speakers. Instead, different word order patterns and conjoined clauses are employed in pragmatically marked contexts. Overall, no specific pattern emerges as a highly preferred strategy across speakers either in Secoya or Spanish.

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Mário André Coelho da Silva

Professor Adjunto - Núcleo Takinahakỹ de Formação Superior Indígena - Faculdade de Letras - UFG

http://lattes.cnpq.br/1223970831220143

+55 31 98729-3757