Abstract:
The concept of norm, developed by Eugeniu Coșeriu in 1952 as part of the trichotomy
system, norm, speech, and later related to the notion of language type, was defined as a system
of obligatory, common, normal actualizations and traditions of the language, which are not
necessarily functional, and which vary from one community of speakers to another. In the view of
the Tübingen linguist, within the same linguistic community and the same functional system more
types of norms can be identified: the norm of the literary language, the norm of the vernacular, the
norm of familiar language, the norm of formal language, the norm of vulgar language, etc. In what
concerns norm, the Romanian linguist also makes another important distinction, namely that
between social norm and individual norm. The present paper deal s with linguistic norm, as it was
theorized by Eugeniu Coșeriu, and then focuses on the norm of the Romanian language in
particular. Considering the “architecture” of historical language, i.e. the internal differences of the
language: diatopic, diastratic and diaphasic also described and analysed by Eugeniu Coșeriu
it will illustrate the division of the norm within the Romanian language.
