THE NEUTRAL LANGUAGE IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: BETWEEN THE LINGUISTIC AND LEGAL DEBATE

Abstract

Through Applied Linguistics of an interdisciplinary nature (MOITA LOPES, 2006), which allows for the intersection between different areas such as Law and Linguistics, I raise two issues here: there is a linguistic-based justification that supports the proposal of gender neutralization in Brazilian Portuguese? If not, is the role that some Brazilian states, like the state of Rondônia, have taken on with the intention of prohibiting the use of neutral language in teaching materials and spaces such as schools justifiable? To answer these two questions, I propose the objective of this article to analyze, firstly, the gender neutralization strategy in Brazilian Portuguese, through the use of @, x e e, in order to identify some of the possible motivations, whether formal or social (CAMACHO, 2013) that justify the use of these strategies in the variety of Brazilian Portuguese. And secondly, I analyze the discourse present in Law nº 5.123/2021, highlighting some of the legal and linguistic implications resulting from the publication of this norm, which, when dealing with the prohibition of the use of neutral language, incurs a series of prejudices about the language(gem). In this way, it was possible to verify that the way in which Law 5.123/2021 as a whole addresses the issue of neutral language presents a series of irregularities, both from a legal and linguistic point of view, characterizing itself as an unconstitutional norm and discriminatory, which, in addition to not finding a legal basis to support it, also has no foundation in the field of linguistic studies.