1887
Volume 16, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1568-1475
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9773
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

This article examines the social and interactional foundations of sign-creation among DeafBlind people in Seattle, Washington. Linguists studying signed languages have proposed models of sign-creation that involve the selection of an iconic gestural representation of the referent which is subjected to grammatical constraints and is thereby incorporated into the linguistic system. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and more than 190 hours of video recordings of interaction and language use, I argue that a key interactional mechanism driving processes of sign-creation among DeafBlind people in Seattle is . Deictic integration restricts the range of contextual values that the grammar can retrieve by coordinating systems of reference with patterns in activity. This process brings language into alignment with the world as it is perceived by the users of that language, making a range of potentially iconic relations available for selection in the creation of new signs.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/gest.16.2.06edw
2018-01-12
2025-04-24
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aronoff, Mark , Irit Meir , Carol Padden , & Wendy Sandler
    (2008) The roots of linguistic organization in a new language. Interaction Studies, 9 (1), 133–153. doi: 10.1075/is.9.1.10aro
    https://doi.org/10.1075/is.9.1.10aro [Google Scholar]
  2. Boyes-Braem, Penny Kaye
    (1981) Features of the handshape in American Sign Language. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
  3. Brennan, Mary
    (1990) Word formation in BSL. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Stockholm.
  4. Bühler, Karl
    (2001 [1934]) Theory of language: The representational function of language. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Edwards, Terra
    (2014) Language emergence in the Seattle DeafBlind community. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
  6. Goffman, Erving
    (1964) The neglected situation. American Anthropologist, 66, 133–136. doi: 10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00090
    https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00090 [Google Scholar]
  7. Goodwin, Charles & John Heritage
    (1990) Conversation analysis. The Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 283–307. doi: 10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.001435
    https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.001435 [Google Scholar]
  8. Hanks, William F.
    (1990) Referential practice: Language and lived space among the Maya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. (2005a) Pierre Bourdieu and the practices of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 67–83. doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143907
    https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143907 [Google Scholar]
  10. (2005b) Explorations in the deictic field. Current Anthropology, 46, 191–220. doi: 10.1086/427120
    https://doi.org/10.1086/427120 [Google Scholar]
  11. Kegl, Judy , Ann Senghas , & Marie Coppola
    (1999) Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In Michel DeGraff (Ed.), Language creation and Language change: Creolization, diachrony, and development (pp.179–237). Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Levinson, Stephen C.
    (2006) On the human interaction engine. In Stephen C. Levinson & Nicholas J. Enfield (Eds.), The roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition, and interaction. London: Berg.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Mandel, Mark Alan
    (1981) Phonotactics and morphophonology in American Sign Language. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
  14. Meier, Richard P.
    (1990) Person deixis in American Sign Language. In Susan D. Fischer & Patricia Siple (Eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research, Vol. 1: Linguistics (pp.175–190). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Meier, Richard P. & Diane Lillo-Martin
    (2012) Response: The apparent reorganization of gesture in the evolution of verb agreement in signed languages. Theoretical Linguistics, 38, 153–157. doi: 10.1515/tl‑2012‑0009
    https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2012-0009 [Google Scholar]
  16. Rathmann, Christian & Gaurav Mathur
    (2002) Is verb agreement the same crossmodally?In Richard P. Meier , Kearsy Cormier , & David Quinto-Pozos (Eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages (pp.370–404). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511486777.018
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486777.018 [Google Scholar]
  17. Sacks, Oliver
    (2003) The mind’s eye: What the Blind see. The New Yorker, July28, 48–59.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Sandler, Wendy , Mark Aronoff , Irit Meier , & Carol Padden
    (2011) The gradual emergence of phonological form in a new language. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 29, 503–543. doi: 10.1007/s11049‑011‑9128‑2
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-011-9128-2 [Google Scholar]
  19. Schutz, Alfred
    (1970) On phenomenology and social relations. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Senghas, Ann
    (2000) The development of early spatial morphology in Nicaraguan Sign Language. In S. C. Howell , S. A. Fish and T. Keith-Lucas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Vol.2 (pp.696–707). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Senghas, Ann & Marie Coppola
    (2001) Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological Science, 12, 323–328. doi: 10.1111/1467‑9280.00359
    https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00359 [Google Scholar]
  22. Stokoe, William C.
    (2005 [1960]) Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication systems of the American Deaf. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 10, 3–37. doi: 10.1093/deafed/eni001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/eni001 [Google Scholar]
  23. Taub, Sarah F.
    (2001) Language from the body: Metaphor and iconicity in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511509629
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511509629 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/gest.16.2.06edw
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/gest.16.2.06edw
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error