Anaphoric Reference Strategies Used in Written Language Productions of Deaf Teenagers

There are few researchers who analyze written productions by deaf individuals; there are also few researchers who discuss the knowledge these people have about written text comprehension and production. For the present study, the investigators analyzed 16 written productions by four deaf individuals based on the anaphoric reference concept as recently proposed in textual linguistics (see, e.g., I. V. Koch & L. A. Marcuschi, 2002). It is important to show that referential progression is one of the textual aspects capable of giving stability and continuity to written productions; referential progression is also relevant to discursive coherence. The results of the writing analysis in the present study show that deaf individuals can learn to use expressive resources that are available in the Portuguese language and can use reference strategies, as long as these individuals can interact with a partner who knows Portuguese.