O status da libras e da língua portuguesa em contextos de ensino e de aprendizagem de crianças surdas

Abstract

This Master´s dissertation investigates the status that the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) and the Portuguese language play in a teaching and learning context with deaf and hearing children, pointing out the way both languages are conceived and correlated on this school domain. Initially, considerations on educational methods for teaching the deaf along the years are presented; then, reflections on hearing impairment, language, LIBRAS and the Portuguese language are made, highlighting, at last, notions of subject, language and discourse, using Bakhtin´s perspective. Such theoretical considerations are applied on data (audio recorded) interviews made with a LIBRAS teacher and a Portuguese teacher, and on class observations of these two teachers while they were teaching their subjects to a 5th grade class at a regular school located in the Vale do Rio dos Sinos region. One important consideration to be made is that the status each language plays and the way the deaf build their identities in each teaching sit