The linguists’ grammars in Brazil: polemical meaning-effects on language to be recognized

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the discourse of Brazilian Portuguese grammars signed by linguists in order to identify meaning-effects on the language description object and its relations with traditional grammar discourse and linguistics discourse as well. We used as corpus six grammars published in Brazil after the year 2000, taken as language policy – symbolic places of constitution and de/legitimation of meanings. The work falls within the scope of the Brazilian grammatization studies and in the field of Discourse Analysis, focusing on the prefaces and introductions of selected grammars, in which we have identified a constitution of polemical effects concerning the divisions Portuguese of Brazil/Portuguese of Portugal, spoken language/written language and cultured language/popular language. We also found that the position of the linguists-grammarians constitutes a discursive place of tension both in relation to position of the linguists as the one of traditional grammarians.