Tracking Pragmatic Contexts of Pronominal Subjects: Acquisition and Attrition in Brazilian–European Portuguese Late-Sequential Bidialectals

This study investigates cross-dialectal influence in native Brazilian Portuguese (BP) immigrants in Portugal regarding the pragmatic distribution of pronominal subjects within a novel framework of second dialect acquisition and first dialect attrition, the Bidialectal Dynamics Model (BDM). Twenty-eight immigrants completed a spontaneous oral production task in both BP and European Portuguese (EP). Two control groups (24 BP speakers in Brazil and 24 EP speakers in Portugal) did the same in their respective native varieties only. All groups favored overt subjects for topic shift. For topic maintenance, BP speakers in Brazil preferred overt subjects despite omitting more pronouns in this context than in topic shift, while EP speakers strongly favored null subjects. At the group level, immigrants produced fewer null subjects than EP controls and more than BP controls, suggesting bidirectional cross-dialectal influence. At the individual level, profiles varied: most participants displayed bidirectional cross-dialectal influence, some maintained their native preferences, others used their second dialect across the board, and only a few displayed target-like behavior. Following the BDM, it is argued that this cross-dialectal influence stems from the co-activation of dialects’ overlapping grammars, particularly in the lexicon, and the different profiles observed reflect bidialectals’ diverse and dynamic environments.