The process of meaning construction by deaf speakers in the Brazilian signal language
(Libras)
Libras; Language and cognition; Frames; Narrative; Metaphor;
This work aims to investigate how Brazilian signal language (Libras) listeners and deaf speakers activate and use frames during meaning construction process. It detaches Cognitive Linguistic theoretical assumptions, specially, notions of schemes-I, frames and conceptual metaphors. This theoretical basis is supported by George Lakoff (1987, 1990), Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999, 2003), Fillmore (1982, 1985), Feldman (2006), Duque and Costa (2011) and Duque (2015), whose embodied approach of cognition characterizes sense construction as a correspondence to neural circuits activation (frames) of human mind, that is, cognitive structures linked to the corporal experience as a result of environment interaction, regarded and reinforced in the memory by the recurrence and the routinization of these experiences. It takes also notions of categorization (LAKOFF, 1987; DUQUE, 2002, 2003), corporality (LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1999; DUQUE; COSTA, 2012), and application of discuss analyze model based on frames (DUQUE, 2015). In addition to this, it analyzes primary and congruent metaphors in Libras (LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1980, 1999, 2002; GIBBS, 1994, 1999, 2005). During investigation, it was built a corpus composed by videos with Libras deaf speakers (experimental group), and with Libras listener speakers (control group), usign activities/tests. This study has a qualitative and pseudo-experimental nature (MONTERO; LEON, 2007). Analyses point to, until now, the existence of patterns referring to the particular way Libras deaf speakers understand their relationships to the world and to the specific concepts, cognitively built, using visual-motor language. Neural circuits activation, in evidence by data, contribute the assumption Libras deaf speakers explore more the visual field, add some perceptual aspects related to the form and object movements (spatial order, focus and attention), and linguistic indexers (signal) activate cognitive structures named frames. This study intend not only contribute to the Cognitive Linguistic but also to the narrative studies Libras deaf speakers.