Expressões faciais gramaticais na morfologia da Língua Gestual Portuguesa: expressões dos graus de tamanho diminutivo e aumentativo na LGP

Abstract

The present investigation embarked upon the fact that there are few studies about the Portuguese Sign Language (LGP) and to contribute to the development of studies focus on sign language, more specifically in the production of facial expressions. The LGP is a natural sign-visual language, recognized by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, since 1997, a rich language in its grammar, expressed by gestures, corporal movements and facial expressions. The facial expressions can be of two types: affective character (used in all languages, whether oral or sign) and grammatical character (used only in sign language). Of the few existing studies of the grammatical facial expressions in sign languages, Quadros2 is perhaps the most complete in this area. According to this study, the facial expressions are divided into two parts: the syntactic level (responsible for setting frasics types of buildings – negative, interrogative, etc.) and morphological level (indicating the degree of size and intensity of the gesture – considered morphemes additives). It is this last point that our article will focus more specifically on morphological grammatical facial expressions, and in which we will try to establish a correlation between the production of facial expressions and gestural production of the degree of aumentative and diminutive size. This is a comparative descriptive study, since it will describe the terms of degrees of size found and used in 10 deaf adults from two different locations, the Azores and mainland Portugal. The study was developed from a task of naming objects in their various sizes. The results were clear and precise as to the prevalence of gestures used in the diminutive and aumentative degrees, dominating overall (Azores and mainland) expression No. 25 to No. diminutive and aumentative 12 for the degree.