Mapeando o modelo gateway languages de padrões de multilinguismo utilizando análise de grafos

Abstract

The progress of science and of human understanding about the universe has progressively highlighted the need to investigate the complex patterns of connectedness between all sorts of objects of study, fields of knowledge and different networks. The intricate patterns of multilingualism around the world, for instance, is acknowledged by the – yet to be thoroughly explored academically – model of Gateway Languages, which focuses precisely on this interconnection. In resonance with this demand, the scientific community has created increasingly effective tools for the representation and analysis of connectedness patterns, among which Graphs are a fundamental checkpoint for their extreme versatility and scientific relevance ever since their formalization in the 18th century. We think that there is still great potential of exploration through graphs in the patterns of multilingualism around the world Thus, in this study, we have traced the use of graphs in the past, including the SpeechGraphs software, developed by the Brain Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. We then used graphs to represent and analyze, specifically, the connectivity pattern of Portuguese and Spanish as gateway languages. In doing so, we aimed to investigate how to take advantage of the morphology and attributes of graphs to better understand the Gateway Languages model of multilingualism patterns and to, for example, answer practical questions concerning translation strategies. Finally, our analysis shows that it seems advantageous to extend this method to the representation of the complete model, with all the Gateway Languages, National Languages and Minority Languages – and their respective connections – that we know today.