A língua brasileira

Abstract

Different discursive practices establish different conceptions of society. In Brazil various expressive moments have been important in this establishment, such as for example, the colonial period, the eighteenth century legislation about slavery, the Illumination in Portugal and Brazil and positivistic nineteenth-century liberal political thought. The present study attempts to show processes of signification that have produced meanings for the national language in the context of cultures in contact - European and Amerindian - in the construction of the country of Brazil, thus suggesting a discursive approach which characterizes a national language which is the result of the colonial process.