From contextual conditioning to signal fragment: an analysis of pronunciation variation in spont neas interactions and interviews in Libras

Abstract

The present study aims to identify and describe which types of pronunciation variation predominate in the discursive productions of users of the variant of Brazilian sign language used in the city of Fortaleza, in addition to investigating how linguistic and contextual aspects influence articulatory variation in these subjects. For this, four videos were analyzed corresponding to the textual genres spontaneous interactions between deaf people and interview in Libras, selecting the linguistic elements that present articulatory variation, in the parameters of the signs, but that do not entail semantic implications to the speech. These data were analyzed based on authors such as Xavier and Barbosa (2013, 2014), Xavier (2016, 2019), Quadros (2004), Liddell (2003), Liddell and Johnson (1989) and Nilsson (2007). The results point out that the alteration of location, the change of hand configuration and the variation in the number of hands are the variational factors that presented the highest occurrence in the analyzed data. Contextual conditioning proved to be the most influential element in linguistic variations found in essentially spontaneous contexts. It was also found that the sign fragment can present a high degree of occurrence in textual genres of an opinionated nature and that it can constitute an element of phonetic conditioning and influence the articulatory variation in the signs, when it occurs with bimanual lexical items.