SEMIOTICS OF THE CULTURAL LANGUAGE OF THE DEAF

Rita de Cassia Barbosa Arouca

ABSTRACT

This article presents an excerpt from the Master’s Dissertation that addresses the topic DEAF: ANALYSIS BETWEEN LANGUAGE SEMIOTICS AND CULTURAL LANGUAGE USING TECHNOLOGIES. The work communicates the results of Peircian Semiotic production and Deaf Cultural language. The semiotics, to which we refer, precisely determines Charles Peirce’s triad or Peirce’s three universal categories: Firstness, Secondity and Thirdness. It is also investigated by Santaella (2004:01) who reports that the semiotic process is the “general science of all languages”. In this way, cultural language will be understood through Peirce’s abductive logical reasoning, also known as the expression “Inference of the Best Explanation”. Meaning that a meeting of ideas will respond and interpret the phenomena of a problem or conjecture, through logical premises. The approach to the language of deaf culture is confirmed by the intrinsic particularities present in the Deaf language itself – LIBRAS. Including the peculiar characteristics known as “Deaf Sign or “Baptism”, in addition to the nuances contained in the minimum units of the sign-visual language, and the parameters that complement each other. Such parameters are perceived in the body and facial expression itself. The presence of visual-gestural-spatial language rich in signs shows the culture of a people. It is worth noting that the designation of “Deaf Identity”, for the deaf community, is their sign language. It is LIBRAS that identifies them. This, in itself, encompasses all the principles of a sign system, with its grammatical divisions. Therefore, the legitimacy of their language and the entire way in which deaf history was constructed becomes part of Surta culture. Deaf culture is constantly evolving, so it is a construction of a people and Deaf researcher Strobel (2007) presents a new way of referencing deaf history from deaf culture itself, dividing it into 3 phases: Cultural Revelation, Cultural Isolation and the Cultural Awakening. In this way, the Deaf person himself becomes a reference for another, being represented in the hypoic framework, the people who made and make the history of people with deafness.

Keywords: Deaf, Piercian Semiotics, Cultural Language, Deaf Identity