Dissertation Research: Talking Brazilian: The Deaf Perspective

本论文的研究项目是一项跨语言、跨模型的研究，比较了聋人的自然手势视觉语言和其中发现的手语的口头语言研究关于语言共性和人类认知的问题，以及语言接触现象，特别是关于修辞实践和交际惯例。研究的重点是美国手语（ASL）和美国英语，巴西城市手语（BCSL），巴西城市聋哑人的语言，巴西葡萄牙语，以及乌鲁布-卡波尔手语（UKSL）和卡波尔语，后两种语言是巴西亚马逊地区土著美洲印第安人群体的语言。这类比较研究可以为区分交际媒介（声音-听觉和手势-视觉）与语言共性所施加的限制提供重要证据。学者们倾向于对经验语言学数据进行分析，似乎在普遍性和相对性之间存在二元划分，而没有考虑到交际形态的影响。手语数据的包含不仅对普遍性与相对性的辩论至关重要，而且对人类认知的理解也至关重要，因为这种理解依赖于语言证据。

ABSTRACT This dissertation research project is a cross-linguistic and cross-model study comparing the natural gestural-visual languages of the deaf and the oral languages within which these sign languages are found for the purpose of investigating questions about linguistic universals and human cognition in general, as well as language contact phenomena, particularly with respect to rhetorical practices and communicative conventions. The research focuses on American Sign Language (ASL) and American English, Brazilian Cities Sign Language (BCSL), a language of the urban Brazilian deaf, and Brazilian Portuguese, and Urubu-Kaapor Sign Language (UKSL) and Kaapor, these latter two being languages of an American Indian group native to the Amazonian region of Brazil. Comparative work of this kind can provide crucial evidence for distinguishing constraints imposed by the communication medium, both vocal-auditory and gestural-visual, from linguistic universals. Scholars have tended to approach the analysis of empirical linguistic data as if there were a binary division between universality and relativity, without taking into account the impact of communicative modality. The inclusion of sign language data is crucial not only to the universality versus relativity debate but also to the understanding of human cognition to the extent that such understanding relies on linguistic evidence.