Literacy and literacy for the deaf

Abstract

Autobiographical narratives of deaf researchers about their literacy process are found in academic works, at the moment that the authors rapport their linguistic and educational experiences. This work aims to investigate narratives of literacy potentials, through the report of those who has already experienced significant learning in Sign Language and Portuguese writing, during the literacy process. The analysis is made during the 1960s and 1990s, a period in which the researchers were in Basic School. Through these presented narratives, in introductory sections of dissertations and theses, we identifies their childhood memories about practices, activities, formal or informal experiences of literacy in the involved languages, which were organizes in two analytical axes: (a) literacy and authorship: writing with purpose and (b) literacy and (con)text: Portuguese language meaning from Sign Language. When reading these materials, we noticed the potential of the narratives to the analysis of the literacy process of the deaf: the impasses, the challenges, the paths undertaken by the students, professors, and family.