THE MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF THE DISCOURSE MARKER “ENTÃO” IN BRAZILIAN SIGN LANGUAGE

Abstract

We analyze in this article the multifunctionality of the discourse marker então [then/so] in Língua Brasileira de Sinais [Brazilian Sign Language] (Libras) in interactions among deaf individuals. We primarily base this study on the theoretical contributions of Castilho, Fraser, Marcuschi, Quadros, Quadros et al., Risso, Risso et al., and Schiffrin. The corpus consists of videos available online through the Corpus de Libras [Libras Corpus] project, developed by the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The findings show that, in addition to functioning as a marker of result and conclusion, então also contributes to introducing and developing discourse topics, prefacing questions and answers, mitigating refusals to invitations, and guiding the presentation of arguments in interaction.

Keywords:
Brazilian Sign Language; Discourse Markers; Deaf Individuals