A VARIAÇÃO DE PLURAL NO SN COMO UM INDEXADOR DE IDENTIDADE.

Eckert (2000) brought in 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 ideologically opposed students, funkeiros and ecléticos, to examine how variable processes of nominal agreement can consist of a field of potential meanings, or an indexical field, for identity construction. The results showed that the variation patterns are not simply unfolded from the speaker's structural position in a system in which her/his social place is predetermined. In fact, the variable process of nominal agreement in communities of practice is part of an active stylistic production of social differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]