Toponímia em Libras: o processo de formação lexical dos sinais que designam bairros da cidade do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This study investigates the signs used by the Deaf people to refer to neighborhoods in the city of Rio de Janeiro, focusing on toponymic motivations. According to Dick (1990), toponymy is the study of geographic names, that is, the proper names of places, origins and their historical development. As a member of the Deaf people and Deaf community in Rio, the author has observed that not all neighborhoods in the city have established signs in widespread use among signers. The aim of this research is to identify the possible toponymic motivations perceived by Deaf signers for the signs they know and use.The city of Rio de Janeiro comprises 165 neighborhoods across four geographic zones; however, this study collected signs referring to 55 toponyms, roughly one-third of the total. Data were gathered through interviews with 22 Deaf individuals residing in the city. The results include 130 unique signed forms, along with 20 associated variants and nine fingerspelled forms commonly used by participants to refer to specific neighborhoods, in a total of 159 signed occurrences.The analysis included a toponymic categorization of the signs, based on the frameworks proposed by Urbanski, Xavier, and Ferreira (2019), and Ferreira and Xavier (2019), to which two new categories were added: rhythmic fingerspelling borrowing and mixed formation. Additionally, subcategories were proposed for calques (partial, total, and imperfect), fingerspelling (partial and total), and rhythmic fingerspelling (partial and total). This research aims to provide insight into how Deaf speakers of Libras perceive lexical aspects of the language, and it intends to contribute to the descriptive and methodological development of Libras research.