Abstract
This article presents a brief theoretical discussion aimed at beginners in linguistic studies regarding the point of view launched on language by two linguistic models: Linguistic Structuralism and Variationist Sociolinguistics. We emphasize the similarity between the two models regarding the conception of language as a shared social artifact and the result of the convention of a “speech community”. However, based on this point in common between the models, we discuss the differences between the two models regarding the theoretical assumptions that deal with the organization of the linguistic system, in particular, regarding its implementation in communicative interaction, speech. In this sense, from the variationist perspective, the Saussurean dichotomies will be critically approached. We support the greater adequacy of the variationist model by considering the language in use in its analysis without disregarding the linguistic variation apprehensible in speech, considering it as inherent to the linguistic system.
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