Estudo dos nomes próprios de pessoas na Libras: Onomástica e Linguística Cognitiva em diálogo

Abstract

This thesis deals with the study of proper names of people in Brazilian Sign Language from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics in dialogue with Onomastic Studies. It started from the assumption of the existence of a sociocultural and historical system of naming people in the Brazilian deaf community and, in this sense, the research proposal focuses on the description of this system, even investigating the conceptual aspects involved in the formation of nominative signs. The general objective of the research is to identify the socio anthroponomastic characteristics of nominative signs –the signs that identify people in Libras– in the Brazilian deaf community, based on the hypothesis that conceptual metonyms/metaphors structure the process of name in this language. To achieve the stated objective, we propose the following specific objectives: i) describe the socio-anthroponomastic aspects of the attribution of a nominative sign, such as: the nominative context, who can nominate and the possibility of changing a nominative sign name; ii) identify what types of metonymy/metaphor underlie the formation of a name sign; iii) describe aspects of categorization and conceptualization involved in this training. In methodological terms, this research is characterized by being a descriptive research with a qualitative method, with a quantitative contribution, that is, the planning of the research, the elaboration of the data collection instrument and the data collection itself follow qualitative procedures, without However, in the analyses, when necessary, we used statistical techniques. The data collection took place from a research project developed since 2018. The collection instrument was a questionnaire applied online. The sample analyzed is made up of 393 responses from hearing people. The analysis of the socio-anthroponomastic aspects was mainly based on Ainiala, Östman (2017), Ainiala, Saarelma and Sjöblom (2016) and identified that: a) the deaf are the main citation agents in Libras; b) most of the listeners receive their nominative signs in spaces dedicated to the teaching of this language, followed by formal education contexts, religious spaces and family contexts; c) there is no specific term for the attribution of a denominative sign; and d) the Brazilian anthroponomic system allows the change of nominative sign. Regarding the cognitive processes that underlie the formation of nominative signs, it was identified that conceptual metonymy is the main mechanism involved in the formation of these signs. The data also revealed that, prototypically, a name sign in Libras is formed by the metonymic chain PART OF THE WHOLE/HEAD OF THE PERSON/PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A PERSON, which may be followed by the metonymy PART OF THE PERSON'S NAME. In addition, it was observed that, in a smaller number, some nominative signs were formed from the process of associative etymology, by semantic loans, by the interaction between conceptual metaphors and metonymies, as well as by unusual circumstances at the time of attribution. Thus, this thesis presents significant contributions for the description and characterization of the naming of people in Libras, as well as social and cultural contributions for research related to the deaf community.