Sobre o conceito de Comunidade Surda

Resumen

The main objective of this article is to show that in order toappropriately understand the current concept of deaf communityit is necessary to make a distinction between language community(communauté de langue) and speech community (communauté deparole) in consideration. Since the language community of thedeaf is scattered among the territory of the community of the hearing,what really matters for the deaf in general is the speech community,i. e., the societies, clubs and similar organizations where theindividual can meet with his peers and talk about whatever comesto mind. The most fundamental feature of the deaf speechcommunity is its own sign language. It is in this speech communitythat the deaf find themselves at ease. It is there that they caneffectively manifest their identity.