“Manual de linguística”: homonymous or polysemy in the history?

Abstract

From theoretical and methodological principles of the Historiography of Linguistics (with the use of categories such as research programs, theory groups and the argument of influence), this paper presents an analysis of two moments of Brazilian production in linguistics, taking as its object, two handbooks published with the same title (Manual de linguística) in 1979 and 2009. The article tries to point out continuities (seen as polysemic phenomenon) and discontinuities (seen as a homonymic phenomenon) in the validation of knowledge in an interval of thirty years of study and teaching of linguistics in Brazil, checking to what extent there are similarities and contrasts between the two books with the same name. As a result of the analysis, the text shows that the historiographic interpretation might result from the viewpoint adopted by the historiographer.