Norma e variação: valores simbólicos em oposição

Eckert (2000) brought a new trend in Sociolinguistics when she proposed a new concept of variable rule, which now constitutes a privileged space of the construction of social meaning. Within this theoretical framework, the purpose of this paper was to analyze the dynamics and social practices of two groups of students ideologically opposed to examine, on one hand, how the variable process of nominal agreement, such as the variable rule of NP plurality, practiced in the community as a whole, can be exploited as an index of the identity construction by members of different communities of practice and, on the other hand, to discuss how cases of variation like that, living together with matters of normative rules in the school environment itself, are connected with the teaching situation.