Between Canvasses and Screens... Reflections on Linguistic-Cultural Interlocks of Portuguese in The Digital Space

Abstract

The present paper aims to discuss some aspects of the internationalization of the Portuguese language in the digital space, paying particular attention to the observation of sociolinguistic and cultural dimensions underlying localization of digital content to European Portuguese (PE) and Brazilian Portuguese (PB). We discuss the vision of Portuguese as a pluricentric language, defined by a remarkable linguistic and cultural complexity that proves its vitality as a language with institutional, economic, social, geopolitical, and cultural potential. This study is exploratory, and it therefore comprises the analysis of the communicative options of two North American multinational companies: Zoom (video conferencing platform) and Amazon (e[1]commerce platform), regarding their digital contents. In the first case, Brazilian Portuguese seems to emerge as a unique/dominant norm, tending to neutralize linguistic-cultural specificities. In the second case, Amazon takes into account sociolinguistic particularities related to contexts of use and shows sensitivity towards linguistic and cultural identity when localizing the website.