Prosodic aspects of child-directed signing in Libras

Abstract

This research, which consists of an analysis of child-directed signing in the Brazilian sign language, is based on a mapping of prosodic aspects as well as on a description of Libras produced by native deaf parents and a bilingual listener (Portuguese-Libras). In order to understand the phenomenon of child-directed speech, our research is based on studies of oral languages, such as Elliot (1982), Ferreira (1990), Castarede (1991), Fernald (1989), Kuhl (1997), Cavalcanti (1999), Ferreira (2003) and Baia, Pacheco and Ferreira (2019), in which speech alterations are observed at the syntactic, discursive, lexical and prosodic levels. In addition, in regard to the prosodic aspects inherent in CDSig, we base our work on the studies by Holzrichter, Meier (2000) and Fuks (2019) on Israeli sign languages, which show that there are phonetic modifications in child-directed signing, such as displacement, repetitions, stretching and amplification of signs (Holzrichter, Meier, 2000; Fuks, 2019) as well as the intensification of iconic shapes to facilitate the mapping of function- form by their babies in the early stages of acquisition, as pointed out by the study of Fuks (2019). The analysis of the CDSig phenomenon was supported by the generative theoretical framework, assuming the existence of a Universal Grammar through principles and parameters. Thus, we assume the hypothesis that as in oral languages, the phenomenon of speech addressed to children is also recurrent in Libras, since it is a natural human language and, as such, it is structured under the same linguistic levels, in which the manifested aspects in these productions will obey the principles in the language GU, in addition to considering the input as a facilitator in the language acquisition process. To verify the hypothesis, we initially carried out a picture naming experiment, designed by the author of this study, which consisted of a list of 51 words based on previous studies on child-directed speech. Subsequently, the corpus was constituted through longitudinal recordings in a naturalistic linguistic context, formed by parents using Libras and a baby in the process of Sign Language acquisition. The results indicate the occurrence of modifications in the phonetic aspects of the sign, which characterize Libras prosody represented by: Amplification of signs through finger, wrist, elbow and shoulder movements; Displacement / Duration linked to time execution of the movement; Intensification, through the speed / acceleration also of the movements. In addition, Intensification manifested itself in Non-Manual Expressions. Also, regarding the prosodic aspects, it was also possible to detect, at the phonological / syllabic level, the reduplication of syllables and parts of syllables as well as deletion, according to aspects presented in the CDS in oral languages ​​(Fergunson, 1964) as well as the use of iconicity revealed through ACs and CLS. Such evidence confirms our initial hypotheses about the existence of the CDSig phenomenon in Libras, obeying the universal and parametric criteria established by GU, in other words, through characteristics manifested at the phonological level, in addition to considering the input as a boosting mechanism in the language acquisition process.