Descriptive study of interjections in Brazilian Sign Language - Libras
Interjection, Discursive interaction, Sign Language, Libras, Deaf.
Interjections are found in all human languages. They tend to be spontaneous, they are intentional and socially conventional and, at the same time, they either require or not the existence of one or more recipients. It is a linguistic phenomenon that expresses feelings and emotions and differs from language to language because it is immersed in cultural traits. In communicative action, they demand the presence of an interlocutor, however, they can be isolated expressions in order to translate the emotional state of the speaker/signaler. The object of our research are the interjections of the Brazilian Sign Language – Libras. Thus, the objective of this thesis is to describe interjections as a linguistic phenomenon that occurs in the discursive interaction of deaf signers of Libras. On a more specific level, it is intended to: analyze how interjections are manifested in Libras; understand the use of interjections in Libras from the discursive context among deaf users; and identify the function of interjections in Libras. A qualitative/descriptive research was chosen with a linguistic bias and as a theoretical reference the studies of Ameka (1992), Wierzbicka (2003), Marcuschi (2007), Rebello (2016), Felipe (1989), Quadros and Karnopp (2004) and Ferreira Brito (2010). As we consider this research pioneer in the description and recognition of this linguistic phenomenon in Libras, we chose the textual genre joke as it best represents the production of spontaneous interjections in Libras. The methodological process carried out included a literature review, contextual search, transcription, analysis and definition of the material for the composition of the corpus, consisting of 60 (sixty) signs of interjections in Libras, divided as follows: 35 (thirty-five) of the 4 (four) videos, 16 (sixteen) from the Dictionary of Brazilian Sign Language: Libras in your Hands, 9 (nine) and from the Brazilian Sign Language - Libras (Accessibility Brazil). Of this total, we described 35 (thirty-five) of the videos and analyzed 25 (twenty-five) of the dictionaries mentioned here. The results show that interjections are a linguistic phenomenon due to their spontaneous, emotive and discursive nature present in Libras, present in the interaction between deaf signers, being dependent and understood according to the context in which they occur.