An eye on the screen, the other on the reader

Multimodality in Libras storytelling via digital means

Abstract

The digital mean might be seen as a mediating tool in the teaching action for the build up of new knowledge. For deaf users, specifically, this mean promotes the development of meaning attribution in different levels. Thus, in Libras storytelling the digital mean faors the access of deaf readers to a diverse literary pool, empowering their literary aesthetical development. In such context, we aim to discuss multimodal aspects and their pontentialities in the reading development of deaf subjects, present in the storytelling videos in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). For such, we analyze the storytellinfg video The man who loved boxes (1997), of the channel Mãos Aventureiras, available in YouTube. In our study we considered multimodality aspects, following the directives by Gualberto and Santos (2019) and Sisto (2012), to verify the characterizing elemens of the storytelling; Peixoto and Possebon (2018), specifically, to work on sign language literature; and Santaella (2012) to appoarch the plastic elements of the image. The results derived from our analysis suggest that the performance of the storyteller, the usage of physical bools, the framing of the video, the en-vironment, the colors, the dynamics between the storyteller and the image, all construct the meanings of the story. All such elements when united make the video a multimodal support that favors the narrated literary text comprehension. The yielded results demonstrate that the several elements that composes the Libras storytelling video in the digital mean requires an attentive and interactive posture of the deaf reader, which potentially affects their literary development.