Who knew that behind the harmless act of making a selfie there is a linguistic problem, isn't there? You yourself might not even have imagined that your mania for taking photographs of yourself could turn into a controversial subject among linguists (they are always watching the speakers!). But know that the discussion is old, it did not appear now with the popularization of the word selfie.
Here we have one more element for the discussion on the employment of foreignisms: after all, you make a selfie or self-portrait? It is unquestionable that the first option is the most used among Portuguese speakers, even though it is a word of English origin. The word selfie is an abbreviation of the term selfie-portrait, which means — guess what — self portrait. So I mean to make a selfie is it the same as taking a self-portrait? Does it mean then that we have an equivalent expression in the Portuguese language for the foreign language in question? Yes is the answer to both questions. But why do we prefer the word Tupiniquim?
Well, the answer is easy: the term selfie it became popular when internet users started taking self-portraits and posting them on social networks. This is the purpose of a selfie, therefore, another product of the digital age. The craze started when the word, thus, abbreviated, appeared in the caption of an image published in a Australian forum (the photograph in question showed the result of a drunken night between friends). So, as she emerged in Australia, whose official language is English, it's normal for her to travel the world with the spelling and pronunciation of her native language, isn't it?
The word selfie gained adherence of speakers, who prefer foreign words to the equivalent word in Portuguese.
The English language is considered a kind of “wildcard language” in computing, and the terms in English (one of the most spoken languages in the world) facilitate communication and the dissemination of information, that is undeniable. Say you're going to do a selfie instead of saying that you're going to take a self-portrait, it doesn't mean that you're making an apology for foreignism, a language addiction that, according to the more radical linguists and less complacent with linguistic borrowing, it would subjugate the native language and implement a revolution Yankee in the country. It turns out that the word selfie it is, arguably, friendlier than our “self-portrait”, which in addition to being too formal for popular tastes, has recently undergone modifications to suit the new orthographic agreement.
The truth is, before shouting to the whole world to hear that foreign words are harmful to our cultural identity, remember to consider that language is a living organism, vulnerable to linguistic variations and to all kinds of elements inserted into the language by the speakers, who are the true owners of the Portuguese language. Of course you won't go around distributing foreign words in every sentence you say, even because one of the The main functions of language is communicability, that is, the property of transmitting and understanding a message that is intelligible. To prefer selfie a self-portrait does not necessarily mean that the word will be legitimized as part of the official lexicon. The word circulates, mainly, in the oral modality, and who can control everything that the speakers say? It would be like fighting against windmills, like the language's “Don Quixote”, like Policarpo Quaresma, a character by Lima Barreto who defended a return to Tupi-Guarani. Opt for good linguistic sense. Ever!
Curiosity: The word selfie is already so popular that, in 2013, those responsible for Oxford dictionaries, at the University of Oxford (the oldest university in the English-speaking world), chose selfie the word of the year! The reason for the choice is simple: in 2013, her employment grew 17,000% (!!!), which made her one of the most searched words in internet search engines.
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/redacao/selfie-ou-autorretrato.htm
