This study, to be used in the teaching of Portuguese as a Second Language for Foreigners (PSLF), aims at the description and systematization of the uses of the verbs ser and estar connected to a nominal syntagm, to an adjectival syntagm and to a prepositional syntagm. The corpus include 7 episodes of the first season of the sitcom Os Normais, exhibited by the Rede Globo TV Network, in 2001. The analysis, carried out based on funcionalist principles, sought to show the semantic-syntatic and sociocognitive conditions (contextual) that determine the selection between ser and estar, adopting as assumption the meaningful and multifunctional nature from these forms. Therefore, we show that the above-mentioned verbs take part in the construction of the meaning of clauses wherein they occur and that they perform discourse functions. Our analysis enable us to conclude that there are three the types of factors in which the choise between ser and estar is based: the semantic-syntatic structure of the clause; the set of assumptions that constitute the sociocognitve contexts of the speakers; and the discursive functions that these verbs serve.