Variação, mudança e estilística: demonstrativos

Linguistic variation, constitutive of human language, manifests itself differently according to distinct factors. To understand how this variation manifests itself in literary texts, we conducted an analysis of the linguistic behavior of demonstratives in eight works of a Brazilian (carioca) author, written between 1986 and 2006. Our results showed that, in the period considered: (a) linguistic variation in the use of demonstratives effectively manifested itself in the works analyzed; (b) there were changes in the usage pattern of the demonstratives from a work to another; and (c) usage patterns found don't coincide with the standard oral pattern of the city of Rio de Janeiro or with the standard advocated by grammars, being marked by hipercorrection, which gives it a particular pattern (own style).