Abstract
AbstractSign languages have traditionally been described as having a distinction between (1) arbitrary (referential or syntactic) space, considered to be a purely grammatical use of space in which locations arbitrarily represent concrete or abstract subject and/or object arguments using pronouns or indicating verbs, for example, and (2) motivated (topographic or surrogate) space, involving mapping of locations of concrete referents onto the signing space via classifier constructions. Some linguists have suggested that it may be misleading to see the two uses of space as being completely distinct from one another. In this study, we use conversational data from the British Sign Language Corpus (www.bslcorpusproject.org) to look at the use of space with modified indicating verbs – specifically the directions in which these verbs are used as well as the co-occurrence of eyegaze shifts and constructed action. Our findings suggest that indicating verbs are frequently produced in conditions that use space in a motivated way and are rarely modified using arbitrary space. This contrasts with previous claims that indicating verbs in BSL prototypically use arbitrary space. We discuss the implications of this for theories about grammaticalisation and the role of gesture in sign languages and for sign language teaching.
Highlights
One of the distinctive characteristics of sign languages is the fact that they make extensive use of the space around the signer for referential purposes, apparently to a greater extent and in different ways than nonsigners do when using co-speech gesture (e.g., Perniss and Özyürek 2015)
This is despite the fact that such a possibility has already been raised in the literature: Engberg-Pedersen (2003) addressed this issue for Danish Sign Language by discussing the difference between ‘reference-tracking eye gaze’ which she claims occurs with predicates or pronominal pointing signs and carries an indexic function in contrast to ‘imitative eye gaze’ which occurs with predicates or quotations and is not indexic
If space is used topographically, i.e. in a motivated way, we should find that third-to-third person modification is mostly to and from the body and may be correlated with constructed action; (2) What is the role of eyegaze towards locations associated with modified indicating verbs and how often do such eyegaze patterns co-occur with constructed action? Previously de Beuzeville et al (2009) and Fenlon et al found a high rate of co-occurrence of constructed action with modified indicating verbs in Auslan and British Sign Language (BSL) respectively; here we explore in more depth the role of eyegaze in relation to constructed action with indicating verbs
Summary
One of the distinctive characteristics of sign languages is the fact that they make extensive use of the space around the signer for referential purposes, apparently to a greater extent and in different ways than nonsigners do when using co-speech gesture (e.g., Perniss and Özyürek 2015). There are thought to be two main types of space used for this purpose which we will refer to here as ‘motivated’ versus ‘arbitrary.’ Motivated uses of space ( known as topographic or descriptive space; see Perniss 2012 for a review) are those in which signers map some element of a real or imagined world onto the signing space This can be done either on a large scale where signers interact with space as if life-sized people and objects are surrounding them (via constructed action where the signer’s hands, arms and/or body enacts characteristics of a referent, as in Figure 1), or on a small scale where signers use the space in front of them as if it were a map, with people and objects represented within this space used in a locatively meaningful way We provide background about indicating verbs in terms of marking participant roles and how they use space and their possible co-occurrence with mimetic devices (i.e. constructed action), before presenting our research questions
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