Brasilian or Brasilian Portuguese ?

I read a text by a Brasilian linguist stating Brasilian is an independent language, subordinating the renown Brasilian grammar and vocabular idiossincracities into a broader frame.

He bases his theory upon the concept of linguistic heterogeneity: “languages that are considered the same, as being differently historicised in connection with the formation of independent countries, become different languages”; the languages “look” the same but produce different meanings (“significam diferentemente”) and are “different symbolic systems”, thus being that similarity simply aparent. He states this phenomenon is different from mere contextualisation of the mother-language (though he doesn't define it). He also writes that today’s variations occurring in spoken Brasilian report to a pattern which is already Brasilian and not Portuguese.

This all puzzled me a bit, because, if this text was meant to be more than a theorical exercise, I should have needed to mentaly translate it to my native Portuguese (European). The fact is I found it a very well written text in my native language, with some superficial brasilianisms here and there.

Here's the link (in Portuguese, Brasilian, or whatever):
<http://www.labeurb.unicamp.br/elb/portugues/lingua_brasileira.html>

My impression is that he took some valid premisses, but then streched them in order to justify his conclusions. But I'm not a linguist so I may be wrong.
What do you think?

And BTW : which criteria is valuable in order to define independent languages? Untill which point national identity factors may be admited in that process?

The rest at : http://www.antimoon.com/forum/posts/8010.htm.