The Power of Locality and the Use of English: A Case Study of Non-Translation in the Portuguese Blogosphere.

The reader of Portuguese blogs is often faced with a recurrent use of English in the titles of posts. The aim of this paper is to discuss this as an effect of the hegemony of English on the Portuguese blogosphere. It begins by an analysis of titles of texts posted in three Portuguese blogs in order to quantify the use of English titles, expressions or words. It then goes on to consider the possible historical and cultural factors underlying the ostensible propensity of Portuguese blogs to such colonization by the English language.