Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2002

Two studies investigated the ramifications of encoding spatial locations via signing space for perspective choice in American Sign Language. Deaf signers (“speakers”) described the location of one of two identical objects either to a present addressee or to a remote addressee via a video monitor. Unlike what has been found for English speakers, ASL signers did not adopt their addressee’s spatial perspective when describing locations in a jointly viewed present environment; rather, they produced spatial descriptions utilizing shared space in which classifier and deictic signs were articulated at locations in signing space that schematically mapped to both the speaker’s and addressee’s view of object locations within the (imagined) environment. When the speaker and addressee were not jointly viewing the environment, speakers either adopted their addressee’s perspective via referential shift (i.e. locations in signing space were described as if the speaker were the addressee) or speakers expressed locations from their own perspective by describing locations from their view of a map of the environment and the addressee’s position within that environment. The results highlight crucial distinctions between the nature of perspective choice in signed languages in which signing space is used to convey spatial information and spoken languages in which spatial information is conveyed by lexical spatial terms. English speakers predominantly reduce their addressee’s cognitive load by adopting their addressee’s perspective, whereas in ASL shared space can be used (there is no true addressee or speaker perspective) and in other contexts, reversing speaker perspective is common in ASL and does not increase the addressee’s cognitive load.

The nature of International Sign Pidgin has been recently described and discussed in various studies and papers (Moody 1987; Coppock 1990; Supalla 1991; Padden 1993; Scott Gibson & Ojala 1994; Webb & Supalla 1994, 1995; Allsop, Woll & Brauti 1995; Allsop 1996; Bergmann 1996). Although international sign has been used in interpreting for almost twenty years, no empirical research has described the unique phenomenon of international sign interpreting. This study analyses data samples of interpretation from spoken English into International Sign Pidgin at international conferences and sports meetings. Predominant linguistic characteristics of the target language output are identified in the first section, while the second section describes strategies that international interpreters use to manage the task of processing input while producing a comprehensible message in a partially improvised language form. Examples demonstrate how international interpreters take a free approach to interpretation, aiming for equivalence at text level in most instances. International interpreters are shown to be more than conduits, as their interpreting decisions indicate extensive use of contextual knowledge, inferencing, audience awareness, and considerations of relevance and efficiency in the process of interpretation.

This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.