Linguistics and its interfaces with other sciences

Research Projects:

 

Analysis of the linguistic production of the deaf with psychiatric illnesses (Department of Linguistics and Transcultural Clinic of the Institute of Psychiatry, Hospital of Clinics, FMUSP)

Description: The Department of Linguistics at University of São Paulo (USP) has partnered with the Transcultural Ambulatory of Institute of Psychiatry at the Clinical Hospital (Medical School – USP) for diagnosis and intervention in cases of deaf patients with psychiatric disorders. This partnership aims to: (i) develop research in clinical linguistic area that help in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders; (ii) conducting research for the diagnosis of language disorders linked to psychiatric disorders and (iii) to study the performance of the Portuguese-Libras sign language interpreter professional in the clinical environment.

Professor in charge: Felipe Barbosa (felipebarbosa@usp.br)

 

Goniometric Analysis of the articulators of Location and Movement

Description: This study aims to develop a model of phonetic description based on antropometric measurement of the articulators of the body in terms of angles performed by its joints (hip, trunk, shoulder gridle, arm and forearm) in the execution of Location in given signs as well as the representation of the Movement based on the same points of description. Location and Movement are sub-bundles of a lexical item in sign languages and have several passive articulators. Being predominantly performed by the dominant hand, Location occurs on the body, in the passive hand or in the signing space. The final aim of the model will be to present a objective description of the location and movement for  the sign language production using mathematical langugae applied to the linguistics contents.

Professor in charge: Felipe Barbosa (felipebarbosa@usp.br)

 

Phonetic-Phonological Assessment Protocol of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) (PAFF-Libras)

Description: The Phonetic-Phonological Assessment Protocol of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) was prepared with the intention to be used as a tool by professionals who work with sign language and with the Brazilian deaf community making possible the evaluation of development language in sign language of deaf people, focusing in the phonetic-phonological level. It aims to determine whether the individual under assessment performs phonetic-phonological erros, in which parameters these erros are presented and which are the most common erros types of in their production. With this information, the professional can take more targeted intervention decisions to regulate any atypia found in signing. The protocol consists of three parts: a list of signs for naming, a sign repetition list and a part of verification of non-manual praxis.

Professor in charge: Felipe Barbosa (felipebarbosa@usp.br)

 

 

Atypical Sign Language: diagnosys and tratment

Description: This research project proposes the analysis of linguistic production and perception of deaf signers with neurological damage or with developmental disorders resulting in complaints of language impairment. Cases of deaf subjects diagnosed with language disorder or with delay in language acquisition will be analyzed from a battery of language tests. Cases with diagnosis of atypical sign language will be forwarded to sessions of speech therapy based on sign language, based on the propositions of Lichtig and Barbosa (2012) and Lichtig and Barbosa (2015). The development of the procedures applied in the speech therapy sessions will be described and analyzed. After six months of therapy the subjects will be underwent to the same language test battery and the results will be compared.

Professor in charge: Felipe Barbosa (felipebarbosa@usp.br)

 

 

 

Discursive Semiotics and Freudian and Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Epistemological bases to interface studies

Description: The study hypothesis is based on the proposition the philosopher K.O. Apel did in the 1970s to propose an understanding close to his own, but updated to cover the forty years that followed after its release. On the paradigmatic tripod, out of the three prima philosophia (ontology, epistemology, transcendental semiotics) proposed by Apel, the advance of scientific naturalism makes us understand that today there is a new type of ontological paradigm. Certainly no more out of or returned to Aristotle, but still a new global and realistic ontology. In other words, the paradigmatic tripod of Apel, today assumes the form of a triple epistemology to dominate the scenario of the universe of sciences (exact and human): (a) scientific, realist, materialist epistemology, which understands the language as a simple medium of expression of thought or reason, and which understands this as supported in mental schemes extracted from the neuro-cerebral functioning; (b) the philosophical epistemology, supported by the vast majority of the great philosophies, arising from the paradigm of the Cartesian cogito, advanced in the transcendentality regime of Kantian reason and extensions of its successors, supporters or critics; (c) the discursive epistemology, which has been created at the birth of Saussurean linguistics. It is based on this last epistemology that semiotics and psychoanalysis can legitimize and trigger interface studies and concepts.

Professor in charge: Waldir Beividas (waldirbeividas@gmail.com)

 

The conceptualisation of the event and the organisation of information in Brazilian Portuguese - Part 2

Description: This research project aims to investigate phenomena of the interface between grammar and cognition. Its aim is to study the relationship between the cognitive conceptualisation of events and its codification in Brazilian Portuguese. There are two project-specific interests: one is to analyse the relationship between passive sentences, the average sentences and ergative sentences, to raise hypotheses that explain the increased ergativisation in Brazilian Portuguese; the other is to observe how these constructions behave in the discourse and what their function is in terms of organising information. In both cases, the sciences of cognition and interaction work as explainers for the motivation of syntactic and discursive constructions.

Professor in charge: Esmeralda Vailati Negrão (evnegrao@usp.br)

 

Body and Affection on Discursive Semiotics and Psychoanalysis. Epistemological bases to interface studies

Description: The study hypothesis is based on the proposition of the philosopher K.O. Apel in the 1970s to propose an understanding close to his own, but updated to cover the forty years that followed after its release. Facing the paradigmatic tripod, the three prima philosophia (ontology, epistemology, transcendental semiotics) proposed by Apel, the advance of scientific naturalism makes us understand that today there is a new type of ontological paradigm. Certainly no more out of or returned to Aristotle, but still a new global and realistic ontology. In other words, the paradigmatic tripod of Apel, today assumes the form of a triple epistemology to dominate the scenario of the universe of sciences (exact and human): (a) scientific, realist, materialist epistemology, which understands the language as a simple medium of expression of thought or reason, and which understands this as supported in mental schemes extracted from the neuro-cerebral functioning; (b) the philosophical epistemology, supported by the vast majority of the great philosophies, arising from the paradigm of the Cartesian cogito, advanced in the transcendentality regime of Kantian reason and extensions of its successors, supporters or critics; (c) the discursive epistemology, which has been created at the birth of Saussurean linguistics. It is based on this last epistemology that semiotics and psychoanalysis can legitimize and trigger interface studies and concepts.

Professor in charge: Waldir Beividas (waldirbeividas@gmail.com)