Política lingüística no Brasil

Abstract

At the time of the presentation, to the House of Representatives, of a Bill of Law for the defense, protection, promotion and use of the Portuguese language in Brazil, linguists must consider language policies in our country. This paper proposes to address that issue, showing that (i) the language does not need policies for its defense, ar protection; (ii) the linguistic problems pointed out as motivation for the project do not exist; and (iii) its symbolic motivations constitute a politic mistake. Taking the opposite side, the paper proves that, although it is possible to establish a real policy of language promotion, the bill mentioned above does not do so. The paper also gives an outline of such a policy.