Within the scope of the Call for Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects (IC&DT) in All Scientific Domains, the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) has approved the research project ‘Convergence and Divergence between National Varieties of Portuguese’ (CONDIV) with the classification of Excellent. The project, coordinated by Professor Augusto Soares da Silva and to be carried out at the Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies (CEFH), has received funding of 250,000 euros (the maximum amount allocated per project) over three years.

Of the 768 research projects approved for funding by the FCT in all scientific fields, corresponding to an approval rate of 30.2 per cent in relation to the total number of applications submitted, this project is the only one approved for funding in the area of Linguistics at a national level.

The CONDIV project aims to investigate the intricate dynamics of linguistic variation in Portuguese in its national varieties - especially European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP), Mozambican Portuguese (MP) and Angolan Portuguese (AP) -, the standardisation of African varieties and the growing pluricentrism of the Portuguese language. At the centre of the study is a sociocognitive and letyometric analysis of lexical, grammatical and attitudinal aspects, shedding light on divergence and convergence between PM and PA compared to PE and PB over the last seven decades.

The international panel of evaluators considered that “The project is highly innovative in its methodology, offering a new perspective on the issue under study and proposing new research approaches with results applicable to various scientific and research fields” and that “it will also contribute significantly to the issue of Lusophone migration, social and linguistic integration, cultural and also economic”.

CEFH is thus recognized for the excellence of its research in the Humanities, particularly in the field of Linguistics.