The VARSUL Database

Abstract

This study introduces the Project that gave origin to one of the most important databases about oral language in Brazil. The Project on Urban Linguistic Variation in the South of Brazil (VARSUL), that started in 1990, initially comprised the three federal universities of the three States of Southern Brazil: Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). In 1993, the Project began to also rely on the Pontific Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC–RS). The VARSUL Project aims at storing samples of speech realizations by inhabitants of socio-representative urban areas from each of the three states of the South of Brazil, stratified by location, age range, gender and education.