Form, frequency and sociolinguistic variation in depicting signs in New Zealand Sign Language

Abstract

The lexicons and grammars of most signed languages include the use of productive, partly conventionalised semiotic resources, including depicting (‘classifier’) signs. Depicting signs are challenging to annotate and analyse in a corpus, and have to date been mainly described based on experimentally elicited datasets rather than in samples of natural discourse. This study contributes evidence on the distribution and variable use of depicting signs in a socially stratified sample of conversational discourse of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). Our investigation examines frequency, form, and correspondence with mouthing. Corpus-based evidence about distributional and usage characteristics of depicting signs has application to the design of reference materials, sign language teaching curricula, and interpreting. We also analyse whether usage of depicting signs varies by social factors of age, gender, ethnicity, finding that the use of depicting signs is more frequent and more diversified among younger signers than older signers, indicating generational change in the language.