Libras e o fenômeno da incorporação nos processos de formação de sinais

Abstract

This work proposes to approach the phenomenon of incorporation in the sign formation processes, based on the morphological, phonological and syntactic aspects. In this perspective, we assume the general objective of describing and analyzing the processes of incorporation of several linguistic elements in a communicative context of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS, in Portuguese abbreviation). Concerning specific objectives, we aim to identify and evaluate the types of incorporation of grammatical and lexical information into base or root signs; register and categorize the divisions of incorporation and their occurrences in the speech of deaf people; and to identify and describe the rules that govern the union of one unit to another to assign or change meanings, when they are incorporated into base or root signs. As a justification for this research, there is emptiness in relation to the analysis of the phenomenon of incorporation in Libras, through the language in use for data collection. To reach our goals, we asked the following questions: what types of incorporation stand out in the speech of deaf people and what are the grammatical and lexical mechanisms underlying the forms of incorporation? How does the phenomenon of incorporation occur in the speech of these individuals and what norms affect the union of the units? We start from the hypothesis that there are several possibilities of incorporation in Libras, in addition to the phenomena of incorporation of negation and number portrayed by works related to the linguistics of this language. Data collection took place from video records in Libras, in the case of the communicative context, as we believe that this format includes more specific results that correspond to the proposal of describing the linguistic phenomena of Libras through the speech of deaf people in interaction. We argue that, in the language in use, it is possible to detect all the articulated and combined aspects for its expression and the composition of the linguistic phenomena of Libras can be perceived only in the realization of the language. The methodology was based on descriptive research, and data collection was carried out with an exhaustive analysis of some videos available in the collection of Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) (<http://www.corpuslibras.ufsc.br>). The data from this collection were analyzed in the light of studies accomplished by theorists such as Baker (1988), Felipe (2006), Ferreira (2010), Ferreira and Naves (2014), Liddell (1997), Quadros and Karnopp (2004), Schuit (2007), and Veloso (2008), who conceptualized the incorporation and guided the analysis of the occurrences about the incorporation phenomena in Libras in this investigation. In order to support the discussions on the analyzed phenomenon, a conceptual instrument was created in accordance with the terminologies proposed by the referred scholars. The results indicated other possibilities of incorporation in the formation of signs, which confirms our hypothesis, such as the incorporation of grammatical information in verb that does not necessarily need to be a displacement, as demonstrated in the state of art and which was described in this research. Furthermore, those data highlighted that there is not only one rule for the phenomenon of incorporation in the occurrences in a certain grammatical group of Libras, that is, even if the sign belongs to a group x, the rule can also vary, depending on the element that precedes or succeeds the sign formed by incorporation. In this sense, we understand that the rules pertaining to the grammatical and lexical mechanisms of incorporation in Libras will vary according to the base or root sign to which the information will actually be incorporated.