Linguistic contact in Libras: a descriptive study on the influence of other sign languages on Libras

Abstract

This paper has the goal to present a descriptive study about the occurrences of the linguistic phenomena of “linguistic borrowing” from different sign languages applied to Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) in video classes of the courses taught in the Letras Libras Program (group from 2006) at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), based on the study conducted by Machado (2016). We used the research methodology of comparing signs found in videoclasses with analogous signs from different sign languages through available online dictionaries and we also interviewed the signers of these videoclasses and foreigner deaf people to confirm their related signs. The goal was to verify which signs were borrowed from other sign languages. The research was composed by a corpus of lexicon borrowed from other sign languages. This corpus was analyzed with the support of Elan software, which was used in this research to identify the signs through the videos. Borrowing typology theoretical support was used based on the work of Carvalho (2009). The results shows that Libras present several elements that represent the linguistic phenomenon of linguistic borrowing.