ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of Sociolinguistics in Brazil with a focus on recent research that privileges the social meaning of variation. In other words, this chapter reviews second- and third-wave research (in the sense of Eckert’s work), by highlighting ethnographic, experimental and stylistic approaches of socially meaningful variation in Brazilian Portuguese.
The selection of studies that serve as examples is based on how they understand the dynamics of socially meaningful variation and on the methods employed to discuss and interpret it. Theoretically, two assumptions are crucial: that of (indirect) indexicality and that of underspecification (both discussed originally by Eckert).
Such delimitation is not to suggest that big-picture variationist work in Brazil is less valuable than micro-level analyses of how speakers strategically recruit language features to manage their social lives. In lieu of reiterating other reviews that concentrate on the linguistic and social embedding of Brazilian Portuguese variables and on processes of language change, this chapter complements them, therefore contributing to the international access to and appreciation of sociolinguistics in Brazil.
