Libras grammar: methodological issues

• Autor(a) principal: Quadros, Ronice Müller de
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Silva, Jair Barbosa, Royer, Miriam
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Fórum Linguístico
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/forum/article/view/77418

Why should we have to do grammatical descriptions of sign languages? Why do we need to describe the grammar of the Brazilian sign language - Libras? Libras linguistic studies started in the 90’s (FERREIRA-BRITO, 1995), but it began to have more evidence after the Libras Law 10,436/2002, and the creation of Letras Libras courses, in 2005. However, studies of this language with linguistic descriptions were based on the signer’s intuition (CHOMSKY, 1986), because there was no linguistic corpus available, like we have nowadays, the Corpus of Libras. The works were punctual and addressed specific language issues. Methodologically, these researches revealed that signers show great variation among themselves in terms of their language acquisition process. Considering this diversity in Brazil, it turned out to be essential to establish grammatical studies of this language in a consistent and robust manner, based on representative corpora of the Libras linguistic diversity. The actual grammatical description of Libras is necessary to provide an understanding of the language for sign language teachers of deaf children, for the training of Libras teachers and translators and interpreters, as well as for language professionals who need knowledge of the language to indicate language intervention plans for deaf people. The goal of this article is to present methodological aspects to be considered in the constitution of sign language grammars, focusing on the development of Libras grammar, with data from the Corpus of Libras, using the SignGram Blueprint tool developed to describe sign languages.