Angry lions and scared neighbors: Complex demonstrations in sign language role shift at the sign-gesture interface

Abstract

Abstract Sign languages make use of the full expressive power of the visual-gestural modality to report the utterances and/or actions of another person. A signer can shift into the perspective of one or more persons and reproduce the utterances or actions from the perspective of these persons. This modality-specific device of utterance and action report is called role shift or constructed action. Especially in sign language narration, role shift is a productive and expressive means that can be used to demonstrate linguistic and non-linguistic actions. Recent developments in sign language linguistics put forth new formal semantic analyses of role shift at the interface between sign language and gesture, integrating insights from classical cognitive and formal analyses of quotation, demonstration and perspective/context shift in spoken and sign languages. In this article, I build on recent accounts of role shift as a modality-specific device of demonstration and show that a modified version of this theory even accounts for cases of complex demonstrations including hybrid demonstrations, multiple demonstrations and demonstrations involving a complex interaction of gestural and linguistic components.