semantique) et l'Anthropologie linguistique(une pragmatique) qui se recentre sur les problematiques de laperformance et de l'indexicalite. Naissancede Variationnisme - (6)A ruptura epistemologica feita entresemantica e pragmatica na decada de 1970 resultou na separacaoentre etnolinguisticas (semantica) e antropologia linguistica(pragmatica), que muda o foco sobre as questoes de desempenho e daindexicalidade.(Silverstein_theory_1972.pdf Michael Silverstein, "Linguistic Theory: Syntax, Semantics,Pragmatics,", AnnualReview of Anthropology,Vol. 1 (1972), pp. 349-382. )(Silverstein,362) What is the relationship of competence to performance? It seemsto me that this is a fundamental question needing answer beforecompetence has empirical content. Do the facts explained by acharacterization of competence bear any regular relation toperformance? This is the approach taken by Weinreich, Labov andHerzog in their remarkable study (1968) of the synchronic bases oflinguistic change, and again /363/ by Labov in his papers onmethodology (Labov, W. 1971. Methodology)and on sociolinguistics (Labov, W. 1970. The study of language in itssocial context. Stud.Gen. 23:30-87). Hereare explored the consequences of accepting, as linguists from Paul[Paul Grice] to Chomsky have, such a distinction:Linguistictheory is concerned primarily with anideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community,who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by suchgrammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations,distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random orcharacteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language inactual performance... Observed use oflanguage or hypothesized dispositions to respond, habits, and so on,may provide evidence as to the nature of this mental reality, butsurely cannot constitute the actual subject matters of linguistics(Chomsky, 1965. Aspects of the Theory ofSyntax, pp. 3-4). Aswas mentioned above, the data for linguistics are constituted byspeakers'sintuitions about sentences,and so it devolves upon the use of these to establish the structureof linguistic competence. Methodologically, Labov has called thisposition "the Saussurian paradox: that the social aspect oflanguage can be studied by the theorist asking himself questions,while the individual aspect can only be studied by a social survey"(Methodology,p. 437). The social aspect is the supposed shared norm, Saussure'slangue, Chomsky's competence.(7) Il n'ya aucune raison de croire, cependant, que nos intuitionslinguistiques et la grammaire que nous construisons a partir de cesintuitions refletent fidelement la structure de la langue.D'ailleurs, les donnees dont nous disposons, meme si ellesrefletent directement et fidelement la competence d'un locuteurindigene (the native speaker),n'en montrent pas moins une variation d'un locuteur a un autre.Comment decider alors entre ce qui est structural et ce qui ne l'estpas? La rupture epistemologique qui nous conduit a complexifier lacompetence en la definissant a travers la performance, c'est lanaissance du Variationnisme en linguistique. (7) (6)Nao ha nenhuma razao para acreditar, porem, que as nossasintuicoes linguisticas e gramaticais, que construimos a partirdessas intuicoes, refletem com precisao a estrutura da lingua.Alem disso, os dados que temos, mesmo que refletem diretamente efielmente competencia de um falante nativo (o nativo falante) naomostra menor variacao de um falante para outro. Como, entao,decidir entre o que e estrutural e que nao e? Rupturaepistemologica que nos leva a complicar a competencia definiratraves de desempenho, este e o nascimento da linguisticaVariacionista.(364)To return then to the conditions disputed by Weinreich et al, thefirst principle which they find abundant evidence against is that anyspeech community can be homogeneous. This