The nonexistence of the Brazilian “new standard norm” in 1,000 editorials

Abstract

Situated within the field of Linguistic Historiography and aligned with the concept of grammaticography (SWIGGERS, 2020), this article investigates whether the reference norm proposed in the grammars of Marcos Bagno (2012) and of Carlos Alberto Faraco & Francisco Eduardo Vieira (2023) finds effective correspondence in the uses of formal written Brazilian Portuguese. To this end, twenty prototypical grammatical structures — previously selected based on the prescriptions of these authors — were examined in a corpus composed of 1,000 editorials drawn from journalistic outlets across all regions of the country. The choice of the editorial genre is grounded in the fact that it is considered by the very grammarians under analysis one of the principal representatives of contemporary educated written usage. The analysis seeks to determine whether the innovative prescriptions advocated by these linguists are empirically attested in this monitored register or whether, on the contrary, the traditional standard norm described by the leading Brazilian normative grammarians prevails.