This article presents a characterization of Brazilian sociolinguistic reality as polarized between the cultured norm and the popular, or vernacular one. The first is defined in terms of speech patterns of the middle and upper classes, the later is a composite of lower class speech patterns. The portuguese language history of Brazil is, thus, viewed from the point of these two extremes, taking into consideration the changes that occurred in both norms beginning in the last century and which reflect the deep and far-reaching transformations in the socio-economic environment during this period. This characterization is an attempt to reach a better understanding of irregular linguistic transmission that had significant impact on the history of popular Brazilian Portuguese.
Brazilian Portuguese; sociohistoric characterization; language contact; linguistic norms; language change; irregular linguistic transmission
