By Humberto Silva de Lima
The Portuguese language is a living, dynamic, and pluralistic organism.
Spread across various continents and experienced within countless sociocultural
realities, it manifests through a vast wealth of regional, social, and informal
variants. Nevertheless, a debate frequently arises regarding the tension
between accepting these linguistic variations and maintaining a standard norm.
While it is essential to combat linguistic prejudice and recognize the
legitimacy of popular forms of speech, valuing the so-called standard model
remains indispensable for ensuring social cohesion, equal opportunity, and
efficiency in global communication.
First and foremost, the standard language serves as a unifying common code.
In a country of continental proportions like Brazil — and within a global
Lusophone community spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas —, dialectal
variants can exhibit marked differences in vocabulary, syntax, and
pronunciation. Without a cultivated reference point to act as a bridge between
these diverse manifestations, there is a risk of fragmenting communication and
hindering mutual understanding. The cultivated standard (which, in my view,
should be the standard language in dialogue with the variety used by educated
speakers) thus functions as an axis of stability, preserving linguistic
identity and ensuring that literary, legal, and scientific texts remain
intelligible to all speakers of the language.
Furthermore, mastery of the standard variety is a decisive instrument for
democratization and social inclusion. Within the current socioeconomic
structure, a command of normative grammar is required for academic
examinations, in the labor market, and within spheres of public and
institutional debate. Denying individuals access to — and rigorous instruction
in — the standard norm, under the pretext of respecting local variants,
paradoxically serves to perpetuate exclusion. Valuing the formal model within
the school environment does not mean negating a student’s everyday speech;
rather, it ensures they acquire the tools necessary to occupy positions of
power and decision-making.
On the other hand, valuing the standard norm should not be conflated with linguistic prejudice. Modern linguistics demonstrates that there are no variants that are inherently "right" or "wrong"; instead, they are either appropriate or inappropriate for a given communicative context. The great contemporary challenge lies in promoting an additive approach to language education — one in which speakers come to understand the richness of their native dialect while simultaneously mastering the standard, educated norm, enabling them to employ it whenever the situation demands.
In short, the tension between local variants and the standard norm should not be viewed as a zero-sum game. While linguistic diversity enriches culture and reflects the history of a people, the standard norm serves as a structural link for communication and a vehicle for social mobility. Preserving and valuing the educated standard of the Portuguese language means safeguarding a shared heritage and ensuring that all its speakers possess a voice and the reach to be heard in a globalized world.
