The orthographic (dis)agreement and the Portuguese identity threat

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Portuguese's opinion on the orthographic agreement recently implemented among the members of the Portuguese Speaking Countries Community. This agreement aims to uniformize Portuguese orthography. A survey was conducted about this issue in Portugal. Our hypothesis is that the Portuguese people will reject this agreement since it will be seen as an identity threat: the agreement is considered as a kind of submission by the former colonizer (Portugal) towards the former colonized (Brazil). As expected, the level of rejection of the Agreement was very high. In this paper, the discourse of rejection of the Agreement and the kind of motives invoked by Portuguese respondents are discussed integrating the contributions of social representations theory.