TRANSIDIOMATIC PRACTICES IN A DEAF-HEARING SCENARIO AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES PRÁTICAS TRANSIDIOMÁTICAS EM UM CENÁRIO SURDO- OUVINTE E IDEOLOGIAS DE LÍNGUA(GEM)

With a focus on deaf-hearing interaction, the aim of this paper is to reflect on what happens when misunderstandings in communication occur. The scenario for the interaction is a reading workshop carried out as part of an educational project. The issue for investigation arose in the reading of the transcriptions of the video data generated in the fieldwork of an ethnographic project. Our presupposition is that this type of interaction is multilingual and that this multilingualism is more complex and comprehensive than the use of separate languages. The data analysis is theoretically informed by the concept of transidiomatic practices against the background of language ideologies.


TRANSIDIOMATIC PRACTICES IN A DEAF HEARING SCENARIO AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES INTRODUCTION
The precautions taken when reading and re-reading data generated in fieldwork before referring it to a conceptual framework is part of our day-to-day praxis as researchers interested in minority settings in Brazil and, particularly in the case of the present research, focusing on a deaf scenario.In a thorough review of video transcriptions of deaf-hearing interactions, the ineffectualness of the notion of bilingualism for data analysis has been, for some time, calling our attention (CAVALCANTI;SILVA, 2007;SILVA, 2008).For the purpose of the considerations raised here, we have selected an interactional fragment from our data base3 that, to hearing members of Brazilian society, both to those familiarized as well as those unfamiliar with deaf-community contexts, presents itself as a bilingual scenario: Libras4 -Portuguese.
It is striking to observe that a considerable portion of Brazilian society may come in touch with deaf people and with signed languages only very occasionally, in public events (in halls/conference rooms).As deaf people in such events take their seats/are seated either on stage or in the front rows, their presence can hardly be ignored.This d istanced contact seems to provoke in hearing members of the public a mix of a feeling of strangeness 5 and hypnotic fascination for the Other.When confronted with a situation involving deaf people and interpreters, it is not uncommon for hearing members of the audience to make comments such as: "They always take up the best seats and block our [the hearing's] view", "My eyes are Marilda C. Cavalcanti e Ivani R odri gues Silva; Tra nsidi o matic practices in a deaf -hearin g scenari o... caught by the hand movement [of these people], and I can't concentrate [on the topic of the talk]".
The interaction excerpt is, at first glance, a bilingual scenario (Libras -Portuguese) where, as we will show, multilingualism emerges.Underlying these key conceptsbilingualism and multilingualism -is the assumption of language as code, unveiling the reflection intended here.This notion, object of so much criticism in complexity-oriented research, was, in our view, one of the underlying issues linking the debates held at the School for Advanced Studies/CAPES/UNICAMP -Mobility, Multilingualism and Globalization seminars.
Our aim here is to investigate which processes are in place during semiosis within a reading/writing workshop, in a deaf-hearing interactive scenario.The questions raised were: how can we talk of multilingualism when only two are the legitimate languages in action in such interactions: Portuguese and Libras (the latter, a co-official language in Brazil)?How are we to talk about multilingualism when the term bilingualism is found in official documents, having found its way into them in order to vie for attention with deaf oralism?This shift in discourse may represent an advance, since it turns away from pathologizing perspectives of deaf people and comes closer to a sociolinguistic perspective.However, we must be careful so as not to promote a monolingual approach while searching for an idealized bilingualism, a sort of "double monolingualism" (HELLER, 2002).Libras monolingualism would come as a corollary of the ideology of monolingualism in Brazilian Portuguese.Similarly, the notion of multilingualism can be attached to an ideology of monolingualism: communication characterized by distinctly bounded languages, with no room for hybridization.In order to avoid this state of affairs, we have adopted a broad view of multilingualism (CAVALCANTI, 2015) and have decided to incorporate the concept of transidiomatic practices (JACQUEMET, 2005) in data analysis.
The paper is divided into two sections.The first focuses on the conceptual framework chosen; the second presents an analysis of an interaction excerpt.

IDEOLOGIES OF LANGUAGE, MULTILINGUALISM AND TRANSIDIOMATIC PRACTICES
Ideologies of language, contends Blackledge (2000, p.26, in his reading of WOOLARD, 1998), are not exclusively about language, about the linguistic realm.These ideologies are "socially situated and tied to questions of identity and power".It is important to note that Woolard and Schieffelin (1994, p.2) apply the term indistinctly from linguistic ideology and language ideology.For the authors: Although different emphases are sometimes signaled by the different terms [ideologies of language, language ideology and linguistic ideology], with the first focusing more on fo rmal linguistic structures and the last [two] on rep resentations of a collective order, the fit of terms to distinctive perspectives is not perfect, and [the authors] use them interchangeably (…).
In our view, this concept of ideologies of language is relevant to stress the issues of bounded languages and linguistic purity subjacent to the idea of language (code) and its correlates such as monolingualism, bilingualism, and also multilingualism.In our view, in opting for monolingualism, the ideology is flagrant: nation-states rest on the idea of one-only common language.Revista da A np oll nº 40, p. 33-45, Flo rianó polis, Ja n./Ju n.. 2016 In the Brazilian case, Portuguese reigns supreme as the official language, although since 2012, it has shared the spotlight with Libras, a minority6 language that has been granted status of co-official language7 .Both languages, therefore, are asymmetrically positioned; their speakers, however, have something in common: they tend to ignore other linguistic forms which gravitate around them.On the one hand, with the Portuguese language consolidated in its position of power, society has always ignored the so-called Portuguese varieties.In the case of Libras, there is an affirmative effort for standardization with effacement of other forms of communication -another power issue.
We would like to argue that legitimizing only standard languages, disavowing other languages and other forms of communication, promotes and strengthens the ideology of monolingualism as a feature of national identity (and/or identity of a group).The nation-state, thus strengthened, may even, benevolently,boast an openness towards (standard) co-official languages, or to bilingualism, or even multilingualism, as long as this openness doesn't get in the way of what is already established.
So far we have focused on questions raised regarding the notion of language as code, an issue pertinent to scenarios involving (linguistic and/or social) minorities in Brazil, and that had previously been debated in César and Cavalcanti (2007).Both authors contradicted the view crystalized in traditional linguistic theory, that describes language as a bounded, static object, and in turn, defended a view of language encompassing all forms of communication.To our research group, at the time, this was satisfactory in order to show that scenarios believed to be bilingual (in immigrant rural communities, for instance) were more complex than previously anticipated, and this complexity had to do with multilingualism (and with ideologies of language).It is important to add that the concept of multilingualism was thus taken in a broad sense, beyond the boundaries delimiting languages.That was the ad hoc solution that was found at the time in order to analyze these scenarios in which forms of commnication were not in accordance with a traditional conceptualization of language.
Still regarding multilingualism, it is necessary to point out that in the New Sociolinguistics of Multilingualism (MARTIN-JONES; BLACKLEDGE; CREESE, 2012; JAFFE, 2012), as in other contemporary subfields of Sociolinguistics, as well as in the field of Linguistic Anthropology, in which the focus falls on complexity (take, for instance, BAUMAN; BRIGGS, 1990;BLOMMAERT, 2010;JACQUEMET, 2005), a critical analysis of this concept is recurrent, while stressing the need to think of language as something fluid and dynamic.However, the usage of expressions such as "code-switching", "linguistic borrowing", or "language revitalization" still prevails with lack of critical assessment.
Among the scholars mentioned, we place emphasis on Jacquemet (2005) and Blackledge; Creese (2014) who shed light on communicative practices in asylum hearings and in the classroom, respectively.The observations of these researchers seem to us particularly relevant to the issues at hand.
Blackledge and Creese (2014, p.1) state that "the idea of 'a language' (...) may be important as a social construct, but it is not suited as an analytical lens through which to view language practices."We agree it may not be a suitable lens since, in data analysis, language practices go well beyond traditional conceptualizations.In addition to that, subjacent to the notion of language as code we find ideologies of language which have gained currency in the day-to-day of societies such as the ideologies of monolingualism and the very notion of language as a fixed object, which are also applicable in the case of bilingualism, one language Marilda C. Cavalcanti e Ivani R odri gues Silva; Tra nsidi o matic practices in a deaf -hearin g scenari o... having ascendancy over the other.That is precisely the case of Portuguese and Libras: in documents and in everyday use, when affirming the monolingualism prevalent in the country, Libras receives no mention.However, when parading the country's openness to diversity, Libras finds its place, thus establishing the possibility of a monolingual bilingualism, while effacing other languages currently in use in the country.Jacquemet (2005), on the other hand, beyond making a critical assessment of the concept in question, calls attention, based on Hanks (1996), to the introduction of the notion of communicative practice in Linguistic Anthropology.This notion deals "not only with communicative codes and ways of speaking, but also with semiotic understanding, power asymmetry, and linguistic ideology", and introduces the concept of transidiomatic practices, with which we align ourselves in this paper.For Jacquemet (op.cit., p.264), (...) the lenses we usually adopt in looking at language must be significantly alt ered to accommodate for co mmunicative phenomena produced by recombinant identities [usually produced through encounters between global and local codes of communicat ion], even if these phenomena lack grammatical and syntactical order, or cannot even be recognized as part of a single standardizable code.
Although the notion of transidiomatic practices (JACQUEMET, 2005) was developed in a setting different from the one in question here, a setting involving the need to clarify misunderstandings which may ultimately place at risk an immigrant's chance of obtaining asylum, we contend that deaf-hearing communicative practices may also be seen as transidiomatic.In the interactions involving deaf and hearing people, in which the hearing person is usually unfamiliar with Libras, misunderstandings may occur, as well as (in)validating co-constructed meanings, as we'll have a chance to observe in the next section.
Before moving on to the transcription excerpt, we would like to point out that in our use of the concept of transidiomatic practices (JACQUEMET, 2005), we attach the notion of communicative repertoires (RYMES, 2013) as a potential repository of resources for the enactment of communicative practices (HANKS, 1996).This coupling, similarly, provides anchorage to the enlarged view of multilingualism applied here: both legitimate and illegitimate languages interest us, as well as the communicative resources that transcend the linguistic realm and include the semiotic.

"YOU HAVEN'T UNDERSTOOD, RIGHT?"
Out of the fieldwork records 8 we have cut out a 3-minute interaction segment between a deaf young woman, aged 17, attending the last year of high school, and two trainees (both hearing, one from a background of Language Studies, the other from the field of Phonoaudiology).The trainees are also young: one an undergraduate student in the last year of college; the other a recent graduate.Both of them were taking part in a short-term program 9 , teaching Portuguese to deaf high school students, under the academic advisory of a Revista da A np oll nº 40, p. 33-45, Flo rianó polis, Ja n./Ju n.. 2016 center 10 for support and research within a public university in a hub city in a metropolitan area in the southeastern part of the country.
The video transcription Excerpt has been divided into two sections.In Section 1, a segment stands out, in which the young deaf woman reports to one of the trainees (Trainee 1) what she understood of a passage read on the Amazonian legend of the water lily.It is important to call attention to the fact that the trainee in question did not have any basic knowledge of Libras and the deaf young woman was aware of that.The deaf woman was standing facing the trainees (who were seated).She begins the interaction using Libras and, perhaps anticipating that the trainee may not be able to understand, simultaneously tries to speak in Portuguese.
It is important to observe that simultaneous communication in Libras and in Portuguese is common in deaf-hearing interactions, when the deaf is oralized (i.e.speaks Portuguese or has basic knowledge of the language).It is also frequent in the speech of (hearing) interpreters of Libras.The curious fact, which refers us to ideologies of language, is that this simultaneous use of languages is sometimes looked down on by some deaf people and also by some hearing people who work with deaf people.They see people who use sign supported speech as unable to produce a "pure" form of Libras.
Back to the Excerpt 11 , the deaf young woman, then, reaches for a resource (Frame 1 and Image 1) often used in deaf-hearing interactions -fingerspelling12 -using the hands to write the letters of the alphabet in the space dedicated to the hand configurations in Libras13 .Fingerspelling is considered a linguistic borrowing from Portuguese; in other words, it is also looked down on.We, however, see it as a resource perhaps used here as an indication that the young woman is aware she is not always able to make herself understood when expressing herself orally in Portuguese.Multilingualism may be detected in the Excerpt above not only in the interchange between Portuguese and Libras, but also in the simultaneous and/or sequential usage of other resources of the deaf young woman's communicative repertoire, markedly, (a) sign-supported speech/simultaneous speech in two languages, i.e. speaking simultaneously to signing in Libras; (b) fingerspelling, i.e. writing in midair spelling out the word legend (Image 1 and Frame 1), and (c) mouthing in Portuguese (moving the lips without emitting any sound).
In other words, throughout the interaction, linguistic and semiotic 14 resources that are part of the communicative repertoire of the deaf young woman (an oralized deaf) emerge.These resources are brought to the interaction due to the need to construct shared meanings, in the inevitable crisscrossing between legitimate languages (Libras/Portuguese), and also languages hybridized in such contexts, for instance, in the concomitant use of hand signing in Libras and of Portuguese, with or without sound.Mouthing in Portuguese is a resource that demands precise articulation of phonemes and which is meant to enable lip-reading by the interlocutor.
As we can see, it goes well beyond code-switching, for one presumes that in a multilingual environment, such practices -transidiomatic practices as Jacquemet (2005, p.256) points out -, are admissible.And this admissibility seems justified, since in multilingual scenarios the need to generate shared understanding is crucial.In this endeavor there is intense circulation of hybridized linguistic forms and simultaneous use of other resources.We call hybrid forms, for example, the simultaneous use deaf people (as well as hearing people in such scenarios) make of Portuguese and Libras in a same enunciation in the interactive fragments analyzed.As occurs in the next-to-last line of the first section of the Excerpt: simultaneous use of Portuguese without producing any sound (mouthing) and of Libras.
Image 1 and Frame 1 (a -e) -Use of Fingerspelling: signing the word legend 14 See Nogueira (2015) for an in-depth debate on the topic.Revista da A np oll nº 40, p. 33-45, Flo rianó polis, Ja n./Ju n.. 2016 In Section 2 of the Excerpt, denotational meaning-making proceeds.Here we see the closing of this fragment of interaction, which contemplates the word legend and includes an apology on the part of Trainee 1 for taking so long to understand what the deaf young woman was trying to say.Once that was over, the deaf young woman takes back the turn to proceed with her report on the tale.In the Excerpt (Section 2) above, one more thing calls our attention in the exchanges between the deaf student and the hearing trainees: the way in which the student uses the expression 'indigenous person' (Frame 2) and the proper noun 'India' (country) (Frame 3, below).In her first attempt to make herself understood, she signs 'indigenous person' in Libras, but after that, realizing that the hearing trainee was unable to understand, makes the Libras sign for India, i.e. the country (Frame 3a), and in sequence, the sign for Buda (Frame 3b), which is also used to refer to the country.In our view, by do ing so, the deaf young woman indicates to the trainee(s) her knowledge of these homonymous words in Portuguese, as part of her communicative repertoire.She seems to cover all possibilities in her attempts to demonstrate her understanding: she knows what she is talking about.Revista da A np oll nº 40, p. 33-45, Flo rianó polis, Ja n./Ju n.. 2016

Excerpt
In section 2 of the Excerpt, the young woman's use of the heart hand-gesture commonly found on social media (Frame 4 and Image 3) is also remarkable as a way of establishing meaning and helping her hearing interlocutor's understanding of the notion that the indigenous girl wanted to date the moon in the legend of the water lily.
The deaf young woman, at this point, uses another resource from her communicative repertoire, in order to help the hearing trainee understand what she is trying to say: she turns to a gesture, with shared meaning, which is part of the repertoires of both deaf and hearing people, very common on televised media and social media, as an integral part of young people's daily exchanges.In order to say that in the legend the young Indian girl fell in love with the moon, the deaf young woman makes the heart hand-gesture (see Frame 4 below), which does not, per se, constitute a standard sign15 in Libras, but has become a resource potentially shared among deaf people, and also hearing people.
Frame 4 and Image 3 16 -Heart hand-gesture employed on social media This semiotic resource present in the young woman's communicative repertoire may be justified by her familiarity with social and televised media.The heart-shaped image, which can also be represented through hand gestures, has become popular 17 in daily life, on social media, on YouTube... and pops up, along with other emoticons, in searches we have carried out on Google 18 .The use of such a resource may reveal a strategy, on the part of the deaf yo ung woman, to facilitate shared understanding with the two hearing interlocutors, especially the one unfamiliar with Libras, through the use of a semiotic shortcut, in order to resolve the communication problem.The strategy proves to be successful.
We can observe, in alignment with Jacquemet (op.cit.), the importance of denotational meaning-making in order to establish a common ground, a shared understanding Marilda C. Cavalcanti e Ivani R odri gues Silva; Tra nsidi o matic practices in a deaf -hearin g scenari o... from which to move on with the reporting of the tale of the water lily.Regarding the Excerpt in question, this search for denotational meaning is conducted by the deaf young woman drawing on her communicative repertoire, which is not shared by her hearing interlocutor.The deaf young woman, therefore, seems to have the upper hand: she is the one to control turn taking and to ask her interlocutor: "You haven't understood, right?"Finally, it is interesting to take note of the fact that this is an interaction in which the deaf participant is in a comfortable position involving praxis without assessment.The trainees are the ones experiencing a new situation.

IN ORDER TO FORWARD THE DEBATE…
The considerations raised in the analysis of the interactive excerpt between a deaf person and two hearing people seen through the lens of the notion of transidiomatic practices (JACQUEMET, 2005), and against a backdrop of ideologies of language, pushed our interest in forwarding the debate.We believe the emphasis placed on an extended approach to multilingualism (CÉSAR; CAVALCANTI, 2007;CAVALCANTI, 2015) is crucial to the present debate now enriched by the incorporation of the notions of communicative repertoires (RYMES, 2013) and repertoire resources.A possibility of future research in order to forward the debate would involve (a) going back to the database to a nalyze segments of interaction in which interpreters participate actively, and/or (b) resume fieldwork in order to observe interactions between deaf people and hearing people in the classroom and in other everyday contexts.
With regard to the deaf young woman's communicative repertoire, it may, at first glace, seem more comprehensive than the repertoire of the hearing trainee, but perhaps these repertoires are merely different.For Rymes (2013) everyone has a communicative repertoire that is broader than they are able to conceive, a repertoire which may be activated and also expanded.In our view, these forms of activating and expanding may be linked to ways of socializing, of gaining access to information, and of being schooled.In times of widespread use of mobile phones and social media, this question, perhaps, deserves further study as it brings with it implications both for teachers and interpreters.
The linguistic and semiotic resources of such repertoires are present in the deafhearing interactions and should be looked at as only natural, posing no risks to interaction or threats to legitimate standard languages.In addition, moving away from a perspective validating the ideology of bounded, rigid languages would allow for a greater and better use of our communicative repertoires, liberating language hybridization and making speech monitoring a thing of the past.
the passage [read that the] story is a legend I understood from the passage the legend (speaks Portuguese as she signs) L-E-G-E-N-D legend (fingerspelling).You haven't understood, right?(her speech, hard to make out, is simultaneous to her signing) le...? (Starts out the word, but notices the interlocutor can't follow what she's trying to say.) L-E (fingerspelling) oh-oh, I don't know finger[spelling]... (addressing Trainee 2) legend (mouthing in Portuguese) legend 10 A room at the center for support and research was chosen for the reading workshop.In the room other people were present, such as a hearing interpreter (Lib ras).The interpreter did not take part in the interaction, on the trainees' request. 11TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS US ED: -Li bras (here in Eng lish translation): lowercase letters in bol d -Libras simultaneously to Portuguese (with or without sound): lowercase letters in bold and italicized -F-I-N-G-E-R-S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G: uppercase letters separated by hyphens -Portuguese: lo wercase letters italicized -(Explanatory co mments on the part of the authors): lowercase letters between parentheses Marilda C. Cavalcanti e Ivani R odri gues Silva; Tra nsidi o matic practices in a deaf -hearin g scenari o...
legend (repeats the word aware of its meaning) (Her face glows at being understood) Sorry (apologizes for not being able to understand Libras nor the deaf young woman's Portuguese) that's alright (sign-supported speech) so you understand I'm going to talk about an indigenous person (sign-supported speech), about an indigenous person (repeats the word in Portuguese, but instead signs Buda and, in sequence, signs India, the country) India, you know?Indigenous? (asks tentatively) Indigenous (sign-supported speech in assertive intonation) The indigenous person looked at the moon, fell in love with the moon, wanted to live with the moon (sign-supported speech) love (repeats the verb love, simultaneously speaking and signing the word "heart" with her hands) the indigenous person liked a few things (signsupported speech) [...]things[...]  T-H-I-N-G-S things (use of speech simultaneously to fingerspelling) thi...(trying to read the finger-spelled word) T-H-Ith-i (sign-supported speech) (...) th-ing S (adding the plural form using fingerspelling -a closed hand for S) ings (underlining the plural marker) S s s (speech supported by fingerspelling of the letter S) thi...things (sign-supported speech) things (nods in agreement) have you understood, sort of?(sign-supported speech)