The conceito de "uso linguístico" em quintiliano

Abstract

In chapter VI of the first book of his institutio oratória ("the education of an orator"), Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, ca. 30-96 A.D.) makes observations on the language to be employed by the orator whose education is proposed in his work, which had indeed already been defined. The author defends something like what we would call today not any "linguistic variety", but the one used by poets, orators and historians, who served, in the grammaticus and the rhetor's school, for the purpose of learning "cultivated" language. In other words, the orator should employ certain "linguistic usage" (consuetudo sermonis) identified with what Quintilian calls the "consensus of the cultivated" (consensus eruditorium), but also with the "consensus of the good" (consensus bonorum). This text will attempt to consider briefly some implications of the adoption of a "linguistic pattern " in a text that serves mainly to describe the ancient ars rhetorica, aiming at (a) situating properly Quintilian's works, (b) setting it aganist the modern debate on the subject of normativism, as well as (c) investigating how much the present debate is valid to refer to that specific moment in the history of "linguistic" thought.