NHS-YES: A Brief Look at Discourse Markers in ASL (2004)

This paper was first published on my old blog back in 2004. I am bringing it here in order to have everything in one place. This series of squibs were written between 2002 and 2004. They can be read for CEUs at CEUs on the Go!

A Brief Discussion of Discourse Analysis and Discourse Markers

Discourse analysis is a holistic way of looking at language.  As a science, discourse analysis pulls from many different fields including, linguistics (how discourse is structured), sociology (how discourse is used between parties), and psychology (how discourse is perceived)[i].  Both Metzger and Bahan (2000), and Lakoff (2001) describe discourse analysis as being “interdisciplinary”.  While some areas of discourse analysis reside within traditional linguistic fields, discourse analysis as a whole, “refers to the study of language beyond the level of the grammatical sentence.[ii]”  Rather than examine language in a vacuum discourse analysis looks at language “as it naturally flows in a situation.”[iii]

Discourse markers are words or short “lexicalized phrases[iv]” that organize texts.  This organization is achieved by showing “how the speaker intends the basic message that follows to relate to the prior discourse.[v]”   Discourse markers help to create cohesion[vi] and coherence[vii] in a given text by establishing a relationship between the various ideas that are expressed within the text.  Some of the relationships noted by Schiffrin (2001) are: causal (Therefore), conditional (If X, then Y) temporal (then he...), adversative (However) and additive (55).  Discourse markers also occur when “speakers shift their orientation to information.[viii]”  In this case the marker alerts the listener that something within the speaker has changed.  Schiffrin (1999) uses “oh” as an example of this type of discourse marker.

            Discourse markers are found in various grammatical categories including, conjunctions, interjections and adverbs[ix].  Schiffrin (2001) also shows that discourse markers can “connect utterances on either a single plane or across different planes” (57).  This means that a single marker can connect various units of dynamic meaning (coherence) as well as the surface structure of the text (cohesion).  In the above list of discourse markers “then” is used in two different examples.  This shows that a single form can be used to demonstrate various kinds of relationships between clauses[x].

Impetus for This Paper

            Roy (1989) provides a list of features that are present in a “good lecture[xi]” according to subjects questioned for her study.  Among these are, that the content of the lecture is interesting, of high quality, and is well organized.  Roy also notes that “good” lecturers allow the audience to follow the course of the lecture and maintain a high level of interest in the lecture.  The last three features, organization, topic flow, and interest level are intertwined.  It stands to reason that an audience will be more engaged if they are able to understand the lecture.  Understanding is enhanced by organization and cohesion within the text.  Roy discusses two discourse markers (NOW, NOW-THAT) in an ASL lecture that demonstrate how these features are incorporated into a presentation.  Roy notes that these discourse markers, “are not part of the content of the lecture, per se, but do guide the listeners in how to interpret the information that they are hearing.  These words or phrases are cohesive, structural devices that contribute to the listener’s ability to distinguish between major and minor points, old versus new information, and turns or shifts in the flow of topics.[xii]”  In this paper I will discuss another possible discourse marker used to show mark transitions in an ASL lecture. 

            ASL uses both manual signs (those produced by the hands) and non-manual/ non-handed signs (not produced by the hands) to produce meaning.  There appears to be less research on the non-manual aspects of ASL; particularly those that do not perform a grammatical function (i.e. raised eyebrows accompanying a “wh” question).  Though I have not found published research on the topic, I have had anecdotal reports of non-handed signs and other non-manual behavior functioning as discourse markers in ASL.  In this paper I will examine the non-handed sign (NHS) that may be coded as either, “NHS-YES” or “nod”, and its role as a possible discourse marker in ASL.  In a class discussion on discourse markers, Divley (2002) acknowledged the code “(head nod)” found in Metzger and Bahan (2000) as a discourse marker in a transcribed ASL narrative.

The Data

            The data for this project is pulled from the first minute of an ASL lecture given by a Deaf woman.  The minute of text was transcribed and then, following Roy’s lead, divided into “episodes” using Cook’s (1975) framework.  The text used includes four episodes, the “obligatory focal episode,” two “optional focal episodes,” and the beginning of the (first) “obligatory developmental episode.[xiii]”  The transcription developed for this paper has two additions to the usual transcription conventions.  The first is the notation   lean(h/b), which indicates that the signer leaned their head (h), body (b) or both (h/b) backwards at the time they expressed the over-lined signs.  The (h) portion of this notation has either a     (chin down) or a ^ (chin up) above it to differentiate what may be two different non-manual behaviors.  The other notation is   nod, which indicates that the signer nodded their head in a manner that is commonly thought of as a signal of affirmation in North America.  There are two different forms of this notation,   nod l which indicates that the signer moved their head in this manner once and then returned to a neutral position, and   nod ll, which indicates that the signer moved their head in this manner more than once, though the exact number of times is not specified.  While all of these non-manual behaviors help to guide the audience through the lecture and often appear to mark slight topic shifts I will focus on the instances of   nod l.

Analysis

            Before discussing NHS-YES as a possible discourse marker I would like to discuss its general function in ASL.  NHS-YES can generally be used in three ways in ASL.  First, it can be used as a substitute for the manual sign YES, meaning either affirmation or agreement.  In this form the nodding action is usually reduplicated.  If the motion is not reduplicated the meaning seems to shift to “Yes that’s the one.”  NHS-YES can also be used as a back channeling device to indicate that the audience is following the signer’s message.  It appears that this meaning can be produced with or without reduplication.

            There are five instances of   nod l in the data.  Three of these come as the final sign in an episode.  One of these accompanies the discourse marker “FINE*[xiv]”.  Of the two instances of   nod l that do not come in an episode final place one appears to be linguistically linked to the manual simultaneously produced sign “THATc” meaning “that one” appears to be a non-manual component of that sign, not be a discourse marker.  The other non-episode final instance of   nod l is in the sentence, “THAT POSS.1 GOAL NHS-YES” is followed by what appears to be a repetition by the signer.  That is, in the next segment, she proceeds to deliver the same information that she had given in the preceding two sentences.  This leads to the conclusion that “THAT POSS.1 GOAL NHS-YES” could have served as the end of the episode had the signer not reiterated the information.

            Another aspect of   nod l that points to it being a discourse marker is that it often stands alone at the end of an episode.  This assessment is enhanced by the fact that the one time   nod l is produced in conjunction with a manual sign, “FINE*”, the sign itself is a discourse marker.  The consistency of this placement serves to build cohesion and signals the audience that a shift in focus or topic (the initiation of a new episode) is about to begin.  That the signer uses the same marker to end each episode is not an accident, though it may not be a conscious decision either.  Metzger and Bahan (2000) cite Tannen (1989), and Winston (1991, 1993, 1994,1998), when explaining how rhythm and repetition help build cohesion in discourse. 

Conclusion

            Understanding discourse markers allows us as interpreters to better understand the languages we work with.  Many signers may watch a text and understand it.  These signers may be able to report that the text was enjoyable, or well organized, but how many will be able to discern why they have these impressions?  Being able to identify cohesive aspects of a text is a powerful diagnostic tool for interpreters.  It allows us to examine our work in a manner that goes beyond judging it as effective or not effective.  With these tools we can see exactly why an interpretation was successful, because it included discrete and identifiable units of ASL discourse including proper use lexical, grammatical, and cohesive features.  These tools also allow us to see exactly why an interpretation was not successful, while at the same time identifying areas for growth in our command of our languages.  If an interpreter can identify which discourse level broke down they can devise precise strategies to deal with their weaknesses and avoid unnecessary self-doubt.

While I believe that NHS-YES can be used as an utterance final discourse marker I must admit that I am an amateur linguist.  More precisely I am an interpreting student with some linguistic training.  More research is needed in the area of ASL discourse markers in general, non-manual discourse markers in particular, and, NHS-YES specifically.

---

[i] Metzger and Bahan, 2000, pg. 1

[ii] Attributed to Stubbs 1983, as found in Metzger and Bahan, 2000, pg. 2

[iii] Agar 1994, Language Shock, pg. 160

[iv] Schiffrin, 2001, The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, pg. 57 

[v] Fraser, 1990 pg. 387, as noted in Schiffrin 2001, pg. 59

[vi] Concept attributed to Halliday and Hasan, 1976 by Schiffrin, 2001, pg.55

[vii] Schiffrin, 2001, pg. 58

[viii] Schiffrin, 1999, The Discourse Reader, pg. 276

[ix] Schiffrin, 2001, pg. 57

[x] Schiffrin, 2001, pg. 55

[xi] Roy, 1989, The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Community, pg. 232

[xii] Roy, pg. 232

[xiii] Terms attributed to Cook (1975) in Roy (1989)

[xiv] FINE is discussed as a discourse marker in Metzger and Bahan (2000)

Transcription Data

Transcribed ASL source text

Episode One                                                            nod11 -TRUE PRO.1+ HERE 2h-INTERESTING EXPERIENCE+ cl-S-1-(satellite beam)++ PROCESS                                         nod1 -2h-HOPE PROCESS FINE* Episode Two -NOW [wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-IX-(run down list)                                                                                                   nod11                af -[wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-hs-B-(indicate break between each item on the list)] NHS-YES -PRO.1 GOAL [wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-IX-(first on list)] FOCUS THEORY TOPIC LINGUISTIC (wh perseveration-S) THEORY CULTURE (wh perseveration-1) THEORY                                                                                                                                            -PROCESS ANALYZE++ IDENTITY++ [sh-UNDERSTAND wh-hs-1-(place holder)]                 nod11                                                                                                               2h-POSS.3++ KNOW-THAT [wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-hs-B-(indicate break)] [wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-                                                                                        topic hs-B-(second on list)] [wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-IX-(second on list)]                         nod1                                                                           af -THATc NHS-YES FOCUS DEAF HEARING PEOPLE COMPARE -THAT rt-CONNECT-lft [wh-IX-(theory)/ sh-THEORY] lft-APPLY-rt PRO.2-lft-rt [wh-                                                                                                                              nod11 hs-1-(place holder)/ sh-IX-(that idea-refers to wh-hs-1)] [wh-hs-1-(that idea)/ sh-OIC] PROCESS                                                                                                                     nod11  af nod1 - [wh-cl-3-(list)/ sh-IX-(third on list)] 2h-PRO.2-QUESTION-PRO.1++++ [NHS-YES] Episode Three                                                                                                                                                 -WELL NATURAL 3-HOURS DEAF PEOPLE EXPERIENCE CULTURE ANALYZE                                                             rh                         neg ALL-TOGETHER INCLUDE 3-HOUR IMPOSSIBLE++                                                                                                    rh -BUT POSS.1+ (wh perseveration/ antcipation-1) GOAL WHAT                                                                                                                                     nod11 -PRO.1 LICK-TOUCH PRO.2-lft-arc-rt DROOL(want) MORE+ LEARN++ PROCESS                           nod11          nod1 -THAT POSS.1 GOAL NHS-YES                                                              nod11                            nod11 -HOPE AFTER IX-dn(this) CONFERENCE PRO.2-rt-arc-lft WILL ENJOY WANT                                           nod11                                                      nod1 af nod1 MOTIVATE LEARN+ MORE+ ABOUT DEAF PEOPLE POSS.3 CULTURE Episode Four               nod -#OK NOW (wh perseveration-Y-po:up) sh-hs-B-PRO.1 OPEN

Bibliography

Resources

--Agar, M.1994. Language Shock, William Morrow, NY

--Dively, V. L. 2001. Signs Without Hands: Nonhanded Signs in American Sign Language in Dively, Metzger, Taub, and Baer (eds.) Signed Languages: Discoveries from International Research.  Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press

--Metzger, M. and Bahan, B. 2000. Discourse Analysis in Sign Languages.  In C. Lucas (ed) The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages, Cambridge University Press.

--Roy, C. B. 1989. Features of Discourse in an American Sign Language Lecture. In C. Lucas (ed.) The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Community, Academic Press Inc., San Diego, New York etc.

--Schiffrin, D. 1999. Oh As a Marker of Information Management. In A. Jaworski and N. Coupland (eds.) The Discourse Reader, Routledge, NY, NY.

--Schiffrin, D. 2001. Discourse Markers: Language, Meaning, and Context. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen and H.E. Hamilton (eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MA.

Imagine if the media covered other interpreters the way they cover ASL interpreters:

Dateline: Washington D.C.

President Obama today met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The meeting is presumed to have gone well, but everyone was transfixed by the bizzare noises coming from one man. Joe Joeberson doesn't look Japanese, but it seems he's fluent in the strange, harsh, overly voweled language.

Pool reporter Fawkes Neuse remarked, "It was hard to focus on what the President was saying because of all the 'gudda gudda ching chong hari guto' kind of noises the interpreter was making. Sometimes I swear I could tell what he meant but it was like there were extra vowels in between the words."

Indeed, this version of "Japanese" sounds like English, but with extra sounds put in between. Whether it made sense or not is up for debate, but it sure was weird to hear. I'll tell you, things I'm not familiar with sure are funny.

Also, there's a blizzard. Buy milk.

Why ASL Doesn’t Have (Many) Idioms

I want to be clear. I am only a sort of semi-linguist. I’m a guy who likes to moonlight as a linguist. It’s like linguist cos-play. As I’ve gone through my long educational journey nearly all of my electives have been in linguistics, I’ve presented at linguistics conferences, I’ve published in linguistics journals. But I’m not a real linguist. There’s a lot I don’t know.

So, with that said, I’d like to discuss something I’ve been asked about over the years. It’s a personal theory that I think is backed up by what I know about ASL linguistics.

Now, I know this can be a dangerous statement. I recently read an article about, and watched a video by, a gentlemen who is also not a linguist but claims to have discovered what he thinks may be rhyme in ASL. Of course, this is preposterous. Rhyme in ASL has been a known quantity for decades, as evidenced by references I made to it in a paper ten years ago. In that paper I note that it’s not my discovery. It’s me referencing known published information. Yet somehow, this information escaped the gentlemen in this video, and the person who wrote the article about him, (who does claim to be a linguist). So I’ll admit that this information may be out there, and I will search it out, but for now here’s this.

The topic of idioms in ASL has been on my mind lately because I’ve been presenting on the topic again. For my masters thesis I researched how interpreters handle idioms while interpreting, “between an idiom rich language like English, and American Sign Language, which has a shortage of linguistic evidence to explicate its idiomatic tendencies.” (Santiago & Barrick, 2007). You can find the first half of that study in the linked reference. It’s been on my mind again after being invited to present and publish the second half of the study for the International Symposium on Sign Language Interpretation and Translation Research and presenting the related interpreting skills workshop Handling and Incorporation of Idioms locally. The crux of both studies is that English has many idioms, while ASL does not.

Whenever I present on idioms I introduce these quotes:

“1. Idioms consist of at least two or more words, which may or may not be contiguous, inflected or in a specific order. 2. Idioms are recurrent constructs...(Some degree of recurrence is necessary to distinguish idioms from metaphors and other style figures).” (Rosenthal, 1978, p. 1).

“It is interesting to note that ASL seems to have very few widely-used idioms, according to the standard definition of ‘idiom.’” (Cokely & Baker-Shenk, 1980, p. 119).

“We can show that things that are often called sign ‘idioms’: are often just ordinary signs that are difficult to translate into English” (Battison, 1998, p. 225).

We should also note that idioms are figurative, the meaning of the idiom does not equal the meaning of the individual lexical items within the idiom, and that the figurative meaning has higher incidence in the language than the literal meaning. So, “kick the bucket” means “die” more often than it means a literal kicking of a pail. Similarly, “TRAIN GONE SORRY” more often means “you missed the boat,” than “the train has left you have to wait for the next one.”

All of that is a long run up to trying to answer the question I get asked every time this topic comes up: Why doesn’t ASL have idioms? The first answer is, I don’t know. The second answer is, because ASL doesn’t need idioms.

Idioms exist in linear languages in order to provide variety. They are used to inject humor, emphasize a point, or to discuss uncomfortable topics. They function as long words rather than as phrases and are cognitively processed as long words. They are easy to use because they are set, recurring phrases. They’re fun, they’re rapport builders. They keep language interesting. So why doesn't ASL have many of them?

We know ASL fulfills all those linguistic functions. It’s not that ASL does not have ways of being interesting, or building rapport, or discussing uncomfortable topics. ASL absolutely has these functions. But ASL performs them differently. ASL has different tools, which may lead to less recurrence, because there is less need for recurrence. ASL has two things that linear languages do not, multiple articulators, and use of space. Basically, I think ASL simply has more ways of being figurative on the fly than linear languages have and because of this there’s less need for set recurrent constructions. So maybe that was a lot of set up for a simple answer, ASL doesn’t have many idioms because ASL doesn’t need idioms. ASL performs all those functions in different ways, ways that spoken languages cannot.

There may also be a component of age. ASL is a young language. Languages like English have been around for 1600 years or so. These older languages have had more time to develop set recurring constructs. There’s also a matter of distribution. Written languages have had the printing press for over 600 years. Through this, idioms in these languages were able to spread in a set form and persevere over time. ASL has only had an easily recorded easily distributable means of sharing frozen forms for the last 30 years. So maybe more idioms are coming. But maybe not.

Once I give this explanation in conversation I usually get asked this follow up, “Are you saying that ASL isn’t equal to other languages? What if ASL idioms are just different in structure than idioms in other languages?”

First, of course I’m not saying that ASL is any less of a language. That would be silly. It stands to reason that some languages have more idioms and some languages have less. The second question is more interesting, because it contradicts the premise behind the first. From William Stokoe on we’ve all been proving and trying to convince the world that ASL is a language just like any other language. One of the pillars of this effort has been showing that the features of ASL are just like the features of all other languages. So why would idioms be the one thing that has a radically different definition? In my mind, if idioms in ASL had a different structure than they do in all other languages that would be a strike against ASL as a full language. So my answer stands. ASL idioms have the same structure and parameters as idioms in all other languages, it’s just that ASL doesn’t need them.

So there it is, my semi-researched answer to a question I am asked frequently. None of it is really my own theory, it’s culled from what I know about linguistics. If you know something I don’t or have a question, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. If you want to know more about how ASL-English interpreters work with idioms please look for my two papers on the topic listed in the references.

References:

Battison, R. (1998). Signs have parts. In C. Valli & C. Lucus (Eds.), Linguistics of American sign language: An introduction. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Cokely, D., & Baker-Shenk, C. (1980). American sign language: A teacher's resource text on curriculum, methods and evaluation. Silver Spring, MD: T.J. Publishers.

Rosenthal, J. (1978). Idiom recognition for machine translation and information storage and retrieval. Georgetown University.

Santiago, R. & Barrick, L. (2007). Handling and incorporation of idioms in interpretation. In Metzger, M. and E. Fleetwood (eds) Translation, sociolinguistic, and consumer issues in interpreting. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.

Santiago, R., Barrick, L., and Jennings, R. (2015). Interpreter views on idiom use in ASL to English interpreting In Cagle, K. and Nicodemus, B. (eds) Symposium selected papers (Volume 1). Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.

I can't believe I didn't post this here earlier. This is a video I created to help interpreters, coaches, parents and players involved with Deaf rugby. Whether it's someone coming to work with an all deaf team like the All Deaf, or working with one Deaf player on a hearing team, my hope is that this tutorial will help with rugby specific vocabulary. The video has voice over for the ASL impaired.

Differences in Construal of Constructed Dialogue Between an ASL Lecture and an English Interpretation: A squib

I wrote this as a project for a class on cognitive linguistics. I think cognitive linguistics has a significant application to interpreting studies in terms of cognitive processing. Because this was written for an audience already familiar with cog-lin and other ASL linguistic concepts I don't do a ton of explaining in this paper. There are a lot of good online resources to get the basic concepts of construal. Many of the texts in the bibliography are available as free Google books. One thing to note is that word in between lines like this, |  |, represent concepts and depiction represented by the word rather than the word itself. For example, | conversation | would indicate a depicted construal of a conversation rather than an actual conversation.

  Introduction

            One of the basic theories of cognitive grammar (Langacker, 2008; Taylor, 2002; Croft and Cruse, 2004) is that of content and construal, where content represents the truth conditions of a circumstance and construal is, “our ability to conceive and portray the same situation in alternate ways” (Langacker, 2008, p. 43). In language, constructed dialogue (CD) is used to report the words spoken by another person, or that were spoken at a time other than the present. Different languages use CD differently. Constructed dialogue has been shown to be an integral feature in all types of American Sign Language discourse (Quinto-Pozos, 2007), while it is less common in English. This difference in use of CD is especially stark in formal lectures, where CD is still commonly used in ASL (Roy, 1989), but is rarely used in English (Tannen, 1986; Shaw, 1987). The brief study below examines one interpretation of an ASL lecture into English and applies the theory of construal in examining how the interpreter renders the content of the lecture when it is presented as CD in ASL.

The Study

Data

            The data for this study consisted of one 14-minute lecture presented in ASL and interpreted into English. The presenter is a Gallaudet University employee. The interpreter is a Masters student in the Department of Interpretation in her fourth semester of study. The lecture was about mentoring. This is important in that most of the constructed dialogue from the Deaf presenter involved | participants | for whom one had more power (the mentor) and one had less power (the person being mentored). How this may have impacted the interpreter’s decisions will be discussed below. Another aspect to keep in mind is that all of the constructed dialogue in the data represent hypothetical reported speech. That is, in all cases the | participants | are not meant to represent actual named people and their | conversation | is not meant to be taken as anything that was actually uttered by any real world referential entities.

Analysis

            The data was analyzed for general instances of constructed dialogue. I did not attempt a detailed analysis as I was looking for general trends. For example, each segment of constructed dialogue was coded as one instance from the when the presenter started the depiction until she returned to her presenter role regardless of how many turns of conversation were depicted between | participants |. 

Results

During the presentation the presenter produced 20 instances of constructed dialogue. Of these 20 the interpreter used constructed dialogue in her interpretation 8 times. In 6 of these cases the interpreter presented constructed dialogue from the perspective of the person in the less powerful position. In the other 12 instances the interpreter either omitted the constructed dialogue and went with an interpretation that made no mention of the fact that CD had been present in the source message (4 times), or used indirect reported speech by relaying the result of the depicted conversation (8 times).

CD in ASL	Omission	3rd Party Reported Speech
20	4	8

CD in English

8

Discussion

            The results showing that the interpreter used constructed dialogue are not a surprise. Previous research (Nilsson, 2010; DeMeo, 2012), along with knowledge of some interpreter training curricula leads us to expect this result. I would like to examine how the differences in the two texts can be explained in terms of construal. There are differences in Specificity, Focus, and Foreground v. Background.

Difference in Specificity

            Specificity refers to the level of detail in an expression (Langacker, 2008). In this case the ASL lecture contains greater specificity in that it shows actual dialogue between two | participants |. In contrast, the interpreted text shows less specificity by either omitting the dialogue in extreme cases, or by indicating that a conversation takes place between | participants |, but instead of providing the same type of dialogue, the interpreter tells the audience the result of the | conversation |. This difference in specificity is diagrammed below.

 

Focusing and Foreground vs. Background

Other concepts that I find relevant to this discussion are those of focusing, and backgrounding vs. foregrounding. According to Langacker, “Through linguistic expressions, we access particular portions of our conceptual universe. The dimension of construal referred to here as focusing includes the selection of conceptual content for linguistic presentation, as well as its arrangement into what can broadly be described (metaphorically) as foreground vs. background” (2008, p. 53). In the case of constructed dialogue in ASL the focus is on the not only the content of the | conversation | but also on the | participants |. This means that how the | conversation | is relayed is nearly as important as the end result. An audience fluent in ASL sees depicted the manner in which the | participants | interact, which tells the audience something about the speaker’s perception of both the | participants | and the | conversation |. Conversely when the interpreter chooses to relay only the result of the conversation then the result becomes the focus rather than the content and the | participants |. When this happens the content is pushed farther to the background and the | participants | become more peripheral.

Possible Reasons for the Interpreter’s Decisions

This relates back to Nilsson’s (2010) assertion that instances of constructed dialogue are so densely packed with information that it is difficult for an interpreter working into a linear spoken language to convey all of them while under the time pressure found in simultaneous interpretation. It seems when there are multiple turns of conversation within an instance of constructed dialogue an interpreter is more likely to shift to reporting the outcome of the conversation. In the data for this study the interpreter never relays more than one turn of constructed dialogue while interpreting any one instance of CD. 

There are several possible reasons for this. First, it can be difficult for interpreters to relay multiple turns of constructed dialogue due to the difference in time needed to introduce each speaker. In ASL the switch can be done with shifts of body position, head, or eye gaze. In English, establishing who is speaking generally calls for an introductory phrase like, “Then the supervisor says…” If there are multiple turns of constructed dialogue it may not be feasible for the interpreter to keep up due to the inherent lag coupled with the longer production time. In these cases it is more expedient in terms of both production and processing to introduce the | participants | and then only provide the result of the conversation. 

Another possibility is that while constructed dialogue is often found in spoken English, it is typically found in narrative storytelling and it is not as heavily employed in formal registers (Tannen, 1986; Shaw, 1987). The data for this study comprised a mock formal setting of a lecture within the actual formal setting of a comprehensive exam. Through both frames (as described in Metzger, 1999) the interpreter could feel influenced to produce an interpretation that adheres to the expectations of formal English discourse.

Possible Influence of Power Relationships

            As noted above, when the interpreter did employ constructed dialogue she relayed the dialogue of the person with less power 6/8 times. While there are many possible explanations for this pattern the statements about the perceived formality of constructed action in a formal English seem plausible here. In talking to faculty and students in the Department of Interpretation, some English speakers believe that use of CD in English is often associated with younger speakers engaged in narratives, the concept of the chatty teenager was used by several informants. With this in mind it is worth noting that the interpreter overwhelmingly used CD to represent the speech of the | person being mentored |. In terms of conceptualization for both the general American public and for the Deaf presenter the person being mentored is seen as being younger. Also, according to Tannen (1995), the person seeking information is often seen as being in a less powerful one down position. This conceptualization of the | person being mentored | could lead the interpreter to allow herself to employ CD to represent this | person’s | speech.

Possible Net Result of Construal on an Audience

            In examining the differences in construal of constructed dialogue between the ASL presentation and the interpretation it is helpful to think of the impact on construal on a mixed audience of people who know ASL and people who do not. In a mixed audience, assuming, as is the case in the data for this study, that the interpretation reaches a certain threshold for factual equivalence the two groups that comprise the audience would be exposed to the same truth conditions. It is plausible to think that if they were given a questionnaire on the topic and facts of the lecture that the groups would score similarly. However, their experience of the lecture will have been different. This is not only because of the differences in linguistic resources available between the two languages, but also because of how those resources are typically employed in a given setting. As we have seen above ASL appears to require the use of constructed dialogue. English is more limited in terms of how, where, and how much constructed dialogue is employed. Thus the non-signing audience receives the result of the depicted interaction but little if any of the manner in which that result is derived. The non-signing audience does not get the same sense of how accommodating the | mentor | is. Nor do they see the level of trepidation on the part of the | person being mentored |. While some of these affectual features are evident in the use of constructed dialogue by the interpreter through the use of ventriloquizing (Tannen, 2010), the fact that the interpreter employs this tactic far less than the presenter creates this difference in construal. Even if the interpreter did endeavor to present more formal equivalence in their product the experience of the lecture for the non-signing audience would still not match that of the ASL fluent audience. As noted above frequent use of constructed dialogue is not common in a formal English presentation and could skew the contextual force (Isham, 1986) for the non-signers. In this case their experience of the speaker’s approach to the discourse would be more similar in terms of form, but their perception of the speaker herself, (in terms of formality, appropriateness, adherence to convention, etc) would likely be different. Thus, the interpreter’s goal of providing a text that matches the audience expectations draws the construal of the lecture further from that of the original source.

Conclusion:

           

            Though audiences attending to the ASL lecture or the English interpretation are exposed to the same truth conditions they have different experiences of the presentation. They are left with different impressions of the speaker’s style. Future research in this area could explore difference in audience perception of the presenter when the interpreter tries to produce a product closer in formal equivalence than they might usually. I do not say closer since in terms of construal because no two descriptions of any event will be exactly the same even if they are produced in the same language. Thus it is impossible to have the same construal of any content in a dual language situation. Other research might seek to explore if there is a pattern of construal that can be found in multiple interpretations of a text. For example, do specific ASL expressions of CD trigger a CD or non-CD interpretation more often than others? This type of study could help identify discourse features that are commonly accepted as being appropriate for CD in an English interpretation. This knowledge could aid future interpreter education.

 References:

Croft, W. and Cruse, D.A. (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

DeMeo, M. (2012). Interpreting Constructed Action and Constructed Dialogue in American Sign Language into Spoken English, (Unpublished Master’s Thesis), Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.

Isham, W. (1986). The Role of Message Analysis in Interpretation. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 9th National Convention of RID.

Langacker, R. (2008). Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Metzger, M. (1999). Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality, Gallaudet University Press, Washington, DC

Nilsson, A. (2010). Studies in Swedish Sign Language: Reference, real space

blending, and interpretation. (Doctoral dissertation). Stockholm University,

Sweden.

Quinto-Pozos, D. (2007). Can constructed action be considered obligatory? Lingua,

117, 1285-1314

Shaw, R. (1987) Determining register in sign-to-English interpreting. Sign Language Studies Monographs. Burtonsville, MD: Linstock Press

Tannen, D. (1986). Introducing constructed dialogue in Greek and American conversational and literary narratives. Direct and indirect speech (pp. 311-322). Berlin: Mouton.

Tannen, D. (1995). Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men in the Workplace: Language, Sex and Power,  Avon Books, New York, NY

Tannen, D. (2010). Abduction and identity in family interaction: ventriloquizing as indirectness. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 307-316.

Taylor, J. (2002). Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press

A Proposed Examination of Co-Speech Gesture in American Sign Language to English Interpreting

Introduction

Ten years ago I went on a trip to the promotion and production studio of a major television network.  At the time I was considering putting together an audition reel for commercial voiceover work.  While at the studio I had the opportunity to watch several voiceover actors recording promos for upcoming programming.  What struck me about their performances was their conspicuous use of co-speech gesture (CSG), presumably to help guide their inflection and intonation.  If the actor wanted to hold inflection steady during a line he would move his hand along a plane extending from just below eye level.  If the line called for him to inflect down and drive a sentence he would then thrust this hand down while making a fist.  If the script called for an upward inflection another  actor might send her hand upward like a Roman or Bellamy salute.

A brief review of training literature for voice actors turned up only one published source (Alburger, 2011) that explicitly suggests using gesture to enhance performance while working; however, interviews I conducted with voice actors confirmed that co-speech gesture in voice acting is an important aspect of the performance that is both intentional and largely spontaneous.  Alsburger, as well as the actors interviewed, note that for naturalistic copy, for example scripts that portray normal conversational speech, CSG usually mimics normal conversational CSG.  The kind of CSG I witnessed at the television studio is used for “sports promos and hard hitting ‘news-y’ stuff” (Rodd, personal communication).  It [CSG] does seem to help push the copy along and honor the punctuation.” (Rodd, personal communication, 2011).  Another actor related a comment that also touches on similarities between voice actors and interpreters, “Sometimes when I really get into a read, especially a longer narrative read, my hands almost work like a conductor leading an orchestra. They help me keep the timing, and when I need to go big, my movements are bigger. When I need to go small my movements are smaller.” (Hutchinson, personal communication, 2011).

These observations were consigned to memory until recently when on an interpreting assignment, I became conscious of my own use of co-speech gesture while interpreting by way of a consumer’s comment.  The consumer noted that I gestured more when interpreting a particularly dense concept from American Sign Language (ASL) into English.  This comment caused me to recall the voiceover actors I had seen in the past and to wonder if interpreters and actors were using similar, largely unconscious, techniques in order to aid their inflection and intonation.  The link between gesture, cohesion, prosody, and emotive production are discussed by Eidsvik (2006) in examining mirror neurons and their link to language production.  Eidsvik notes that many cognitive language processes, including gesture, are knitted together in the compact part of the brain known as Broca’s Area, indicating that the link between language production and gesture is inherent.  Eidsvik goes on to say that mirror neurons respond to viewing a gesture to trigger an empathic response that mimics that of the person making the gesture.  It then stands to reason that when trying to convey the affect found in a script one would feel compelled to use gestures that are, in memory, associated with that message.  Like voice over work, interpreting involves a kind of performance.  In both cases the person speaking is conveying someone else’s words and is tasked with doing so while conveying tone and inflection consistent with the original intent.  I wondered if interpreters’ use of CSG included a similar cohesive function as it appeared to serve for actors. Like voice actors, interpreters are also not specifically trained in the use of specific co-speech gestures to elicit specific results.  Instead they are left to do or use what may come naturally.  In subsequent observation of interpreters at work I believe that the use of co-speech gesture may be consciously produced and serve three functions, 1) to help with “punctuation” and timing in the source language output, 2) to facilitate the retrieval of lexical items, and  3) to elicit feedback from communication participants.

This research proposal aims to examine the production of co-speech gesture in ASL-English categories and to examine their function in the rendering of a target message.  In this study, I will follow work done by Casey and Emmorey (2009) in examining whether the use of co-speech gesture by interpreters working from American Sign Language to English pattern like gestures that emerged in the spontaneous English language production by bimodal bilinguals (people who are fluent in both a manual and a spoken language) as they converse in a non-interpreting context. If the CSG patterns found in English target language production of bilingual bimodal interpreters differ from those found by Casey and Emmorey, it is possible that there is an effect of fluency, or of comfort level, on the inhibition of gesture. There may also be evidence that the highly demanding task of interpretation results in different patterns of co-speech gesture than what emerges during spontaneous discourse.

Literature Review

            To date no research has been published regarding the use of co-speech gesture during interpretation; however, there is ample research on the function of co-speech gesture in cognition (Cassel, 1998; Wesp et al, 2001; Feyereisen, 2006; Casey and Emmorey, 2009).  Cassel (1998) lays a foundation for the study of CSG saying,

A growing body of evidence shows that people unwittingly produce gestures along with speech in many different communicative situations.  These gestures have been shown to elaborate upon and enhance the content of accompanying speech… Gestures have also been shown to identify underlying reasoning processes that the speaker did not or could not articulate (Cassel, 1998: 191). 

It is this identification of unarticulated cognitive processes that is of interest here, specifically I would like to determine whether the use of CSG by interpreters is quantitatively different than use by general language users in terms of either amount or function.  Since interpreting is a cognitively different task than spontaneous language production (Christoffles & de Groot, 2005; Grosjean, 2011), we may expect to see differences in the use of CSG by interpreters.  Of further interest is whether the amount of CSG produced during interpretation is correlated to the cohesiveness of the target language output. That CSG could impact quality, or give insight into the cognitive act of interpreting, is supported by Casey et al (forthcoming) who note that, “gesture creation…affects both language production and comprehension” (3). If the use of CSG impacts speech production and comprehension, it is worthy of study for what it may reveal non-linguistic aspects of successful interpretation.  The understanding of the role of gesture during interpretation could inform both the practice and training of interpreters.  Conversely, inhibition of CSG may lead to disfluencies and/or interfere with lexical search (Wesp et al, 2006).  If this is true, research on CSG use by interpreters may indicate that student and novice interpreters could benefit from information on the role of CSG while interpreting. 

            Co-speech gesture has also been shown to occur during specific cognitive tasks, including lexical search, recall of concepts, supporting the rhythm of language production, engagement, and as mentioned above, comprehension and production of language (Wesp et al, 2001).  All of these individual cognitive tasks are involved in the larger task of interpretation.  Further, Nagpal et al (2011) note that research shows CSG is primarily used to help speakers access language to aid production and are produced even when there is no audience able to see the gestures.  They further posit that people will gesture more when producing their L2 since it is harder to produce the language in which the speaker is less proficient.  This concept of gesture as related to effort of formulation and production also implies that interpreter use of CSG could relate to the richness of their interpretations.

Wesp et al (2001) note that, “spatial imagery serves a short term memory function during lexical search…gesture keeps the pre-lexical concept in memory while lexical search is happening” (p. 591).  Streeck (2009) describes how CSG is used to engage interlocutors via two phases of lexical search gesture one in which the searching party discourages participation of other parties, often accompanied by a shift in eye gaze, and a second phase in which “collaboration is sought.” (Streeck, 2009: 108).  Interpreters rarely shift their gaze from the signer during ASL-English interpreting and so one might predict that the two phases described by Streeck could involve smaller and then larger gestures with the seeking of collaboration being directed at either the signer or the team interpreter.  Lexical search behavior may also take the form of deictics, which can reference the immediate physical space, an unseen real space, or a conceptual space (Streeck, 2009).  Feyereisen (2006) describes two types of co-speech gestures.  The first type, representational or iconic gestures, represent "visual or dynamic features of the referent" and evoke mental activation of images, both visual and motor. Representational gestures depict an image when produced. The second type, nonrepresentational gestures, do not depict a particular referent; rather, they are produced with a single non-representational form regardless of the content of the message. Non-representational gestures are sometimes called beats because they are tied to the rhythm and stress that occurs during speech production.  These nonrepresentational beat gestures are represented, in an extreme form, by the actions of the voice actors discussed earlier in this paper.  These are also the gestures I predict will serve a cohesive function for interpreters. 

Casey & Emmorey (2009) hypothesize that representational gesture use by balanced bimodal bilinguals is influenced by activation of the right parietal cortex, which may be involved in processing spatial information.  The authors support this by citing research shows that in bimodal bilinguals this area of the brain is activated when producing spatial prepositions in English whereas monolingual English speakers did not activate the right parietal cortex when using the same prepositions.  The authors also hypothesize that bimodal bilinguals may produce more deictic gestures than monolinguals when discussing route, mapping, or other spatial information. 

Casey et al (forthcoming) further note that use of CSG helps with recall and spatial cognition.  The authors note research that found adults use of CSG while describing events helps with their recall of those events in both the short and long terms.  The authors also posit that gesture rates related to learning a manual language may improve cognitive abilities by adding a manual component to the encoding of events in memory. These hypotheses suggest that interpreters who are receiving manual language input and producing spoken language output may also use representational and deictic gestures as cohesive aides when discussing spatial information.  If this is the case then research on co-speech gesture as it relates to working memory during simultaneous interpretation could be another viable research topic that could build on the research proposed here.

Studies describe a difference between representational and nonrepresentational in terms of the concepts these gestures help language users produce.  Representational gestures are more often used to recall and describe spatial concepts as in Wesp et al’s (2001) examination of participants describing a painting to another person.  In this study the authors suggest that CSG increases when the speaker is attempting to describe something visual but that “…in search for synonyms or lexical search for nonspatial concepts, the need for gesturing is reduced” (Wesp et al, 2001: 593). Feyereisen (2006) reinforces this concept, saying that since they lack content nonrepresentational gestures likely aid memory through emphasis of the sentence they co-occur with by adding a visual and motor component to the spoken language.  Feyereisen’s (2006) study examined how a speaker’s use of CSG impacted sentence recall by an observer. Feyereisen found that sentence recall was enhanced most, compared to recall without gesture, when presented with representational gestures, but was also improved when presented with nonrepresentational gesture. Feyereisen highlights an especially germane concept related to ASL-English interpreting, 

 It is now well established that sentences that refer to actions like shaking a bottle or stirring a cup of coffee  are recalled and recognised in higher proportion if the subjects perform the action during verbal presentation (subject-performed tasks or SPTs), by comparison with merely reading or listening to the sentences (so-called verbal tasks or VTs). Sentences are also better recalled if subjects only see the experimenter performing the action (experimenter-performed tasks or EPTs). (198)

This relates to cross modality interpreting in that the way ASL presents many of the types of concepts Feyereisen describes is through the use of iconic signs, which may be considered representational gestures or “classifier constructions” (Casey and Emmorey, 2009).  It is possible that comprehension of an ASL source message is easier due to the representational gesture and the semantic/lexical information coexisting as one item.

Two of the studies discussed above, Casey and Emmorey (2009) and Casey et al (forthcoming) comprise the primary foundation of the study proposed below.  Casey and Emmorey (2009) found that the co-speech gesture rates among native bimodal bilinguals, people who grew up with both a manual language (ASL in this case) and a spoken language (English) were statistically similar to the CSG rates of English monolinguals.  They found that the bimodal bilinguals used more iconic gestures, more character viewpoint gestures, and a greater variety of handshapes.  The two groups were equal in their use of deictics and two-handed gestures where each hand represented an different entity (i.e. two people juxtaposed in space). The monolingual control group used more beat gestures.

            Casey and Emmorey (2009) posit that the equal gesture rates suggest that ASL signs occur in the place of co-speech gestures, rather than in addition to them.  Further, they suggest that the use of ASL signs when speaking to a monolingual non-user of ASL is not part of the normal CSG system but rather an inability to suppress ASL, the participant’s L1, while speaking English.  The authors note,

…our findings are consistent with Emmorey et al.’s hypothesis that the locus of

lexical selection for all bilinguals is relatively late in language production. If the architecture of the bilingual language production system required that a single lexical representation be selected at the preverbal message level or at the lemma level, we would expect no ASL signs to be produced when bilinguals talk with non-signing English speakers” (Casey & Emmorey, 2009). 

If this is true for all bilinguals second language learners of ASL could exhibit similar behaviors as the experimental group analyzed by Casey and Emmorey.

In the discussion of their findings Casey and Emmorey (2009) suggest that “late acquisition of a second language may affect co-speech gesture in ways that differ from simultaneous acquisition of two native languages” (304). Casey et al (forthcoming) also report that the co-speech gesture rate increases for second language learners of ASL after one year of ASL instruction.  Along with this increase in overall use of CSG the forthcoming paper specifies that these new ASL users increased their use of representational gestures and used at least one ASL sign during their language production.  The authors suggest that the reason for these findings involve cognitive processes associated with learning a manual L2 and an inability to suppress their L2.  Though they do not mention the possibility of these findings being due simply to exuberance exhibited by L2 ASL users after one year of instruction they do acknowledge the following:

Another possibility is that sign production while speaking does not reflect a failure to suppress ASL, but rather an increase in the repertoire of conventional gestures. Under this hypothesis, ASL learners have not begun to acquire a new lexicon (as have the Romance language learners), but instead have learned new emblematic gestures (akin to “quiet” (finger to lips), “stop” (palm outstretched), “good luck” (fingers crossed), or “thumbs up”) (Casey et al, forthcoming: 19).

Research comparing early L2 ASL learners to monolingual English speaking controls is in its early stages. I believe that comparing all of the groups discussed so far, native bimodal bilinguals, early L2 learners of ASL, monolingual English speakers, as well as bimodal bilinguals who acquired L2 ASL as adults would be descriptive of CSG use by bimodal bilinguals.  Examining the CSG rates and types used by the bilingual adult L2 acquisition group would make a good lead in to the study I am proposing and would fill the gap between the groups discussed when Casey et al say, “It appears that both life-long and short-term exposure to ASL increases the use of meaningful, representational gestures when speaking.” (16)

Finally, Casey et al (forthcoming) close by noting that learning a manual language may stimulate a stronger link between language and gesture.  This, along with the research on the functions and cognitive effects of CSG on recall, cohesion, and affect (tone and inflection) suggest that a study of CSG use by interpreters could provide insight into how the cognitive process of interpreting manifests in CSG.

Methodology

Participants

Data from samples of two groups (students and experienced interpreters) will be examined under two conditions.  The first participant group is interpreting students, specifically senior undergraduates and second year masters students in interpreting programs. Interpreting students are unique in the field in terms of their ability to film themselves during live interpreting scenarios.  Interpreting programs offer students opportunities for interpreting practice with live participants, which presents a measure of ecological validity to the data.  Metzger (1999) suggests that mock interpreting scenarios with live participants provide viable data for the study of interpreters.  Another advantage for using students lies in their experience with being recorded.  Students in many interpreting programs regularly record themselves, which may help overcome issues from the observer’s paradox.  Finally, students present a sample for two possible comparisons.  The first is the comparison of students’ use of CSG with that of experienced interpreters.  If the CSG rates of interpreters compares favorably with the rates found in spontaneous language production the second is a comparison of advanced (near graduation) interpreting students’ use of CSG with the results of Casey et al (forthcoming) finding that one year of ASL instruction increased the rate of CSG in students.

The second group of participants will consist of experienced interpreters.  All participants in this sample would be nationally certified and have at least five years of professional experience.  These characteristics are consistent with the generally accepted notion of “experienced” in the North American ASL-English interpreting community.  This sample can present some challenges in terms of data collection.  For one, the confidential nature of interpreting often precludes recording of actual job situations.  It is possible that permission to record interpreters at some public events may be obtained.  Additionally, there may be reluctance on the part of the interpreters to be publically videotaped.

Both the student and experienced groups will be comprised of second language learners of ASL.  The reason for selecting this group is to remove the possible confounding factor of L1 suppression.  Casey and Emmorey (2009) looking at the use of CSG by bimodal bilinguals for whom ASL is their first language posit that, ASL signs produced by bimodal bilinguals during spoken language production are separate from the cognitive process that produces co-speech gesture and are instead intrusions caused by a failure to suppress the speaker’s manual language.  Using only interpreters for whom ASL is their L2 would avoid the L1 language intrusion factor though it is possible that with less experience suppressing the manual modality language L2 ASL users may show more lexical items in their CSG than L1 ASL users do during spontaneous language production.

Conditions

            In the proposed study, I will examine interpreters’ use of gestures under two types of interpreting conditions ‑ authentic interpreting situations and interpretations produced using a recorded source text in a lab.  While looking at various types of texts with interpreters working both in teams and alone would be interesting and provide the most realistic data, for this study I propose looking at interpreters working in teams of two, interpreting monologues by deaf ASL users.  This condition best replicates the working conditions under which interpreters normally work.  As such it would be the easiest for which to obtain real world recorded data, which could also be replicated under lab conditions.  Recordings of interpreters working with live source texts would provide ecological validity to the data as well as an opportunity to examine the use of CSG in interpreters in authentic settings.  Use of a recorded source text would allow for control of the source message and a reduction in variables as a means of standardizing test conditions in a way that is more scientifically valid.  Also, use of a recorded source text in lab conditions may allow for easier data collection due to the difficulties of scheduling and obtaining the consent of multiple real world parties as required in the recording of real world data.

Coding

            Gesture coding will be based on the coding scheme devised by Casey and Emmorey (2009).  Casey and Emmorey coded for “…ASL signs versus non-sign gestures; iconic, deictic, and beat types; character and observer viewpoints; and handshape form.” (2009: 296).  Casey and Emmorey (2009) define ASL signs as “identifiable lexical signs (e.g., CAT or BIRD) or classifier constructions that a non-signer would be unlikely to produce. For example, a bent V handshape is used in ASL as a classifier for animals.” (297).  Iconic gestures are any gestures that look like what they represent, i.e. mimicking driving a car or tracing the outline of an object.  Deictic gestures point to a referent that is either present in the physical space where the language production is taking place or to a conceptual referent for example, pointing down when referring to China.  Character/observer viewpoint gestures are “produced from the perspective of a character, i.e., produced as if the gesturer were the character. For example, moving two fists outward to describe Sylvester swinging on a rope.” (Casey and Emmorey, 2009: 297).  Handshape form examines whether the gesture is made with a handshape that is typically associated with ASL (i.e. the “ILY” handshape) or with a gesture that is common among North American English speakers, (i.e. the “rock on” gesture).  As Casey and Emmorey (2009) note, these categories are not mutually exclusive and one gesture may fall into more than one category.

            Beat gestures are commonly found in spoken language at points of emphasis, to provide or illustrate some rhythmic feature of the discourse, and in word search behaviors (Casey and Emmorey, 2009; Wesp, 2001; Feyereisen, 2006; Streeck, 2009).  A preliminary analysis I conducted on one interpreting sample showed the use of deictic, character viewpoint, ASL signs and fingerspelling and beat gestures.  The most common gesture types were beat and ASL signs and fingerspelling.  The ASL signs and fingerspelling seemed to be exclusively used between the interpreting team as a means of getting clarification or confirmation of the signed source message.  I believe the beat gestures could be a candidate for further analysis.  The interpreting sample I examined suggests simple beat gestures, emphatic beat gestures, lexical search gestures, and cohesive beat gestures.  Simple beat gestures are the kind of simple rhythm gestures associated with everyday spoken language production.  Emphatic beat gestures seem to serve a similar function as the gestures used by voice over actors.  Lexical search gestures accompany parts of the interpretation where the interpreter is clearly searching for a word or phrase to match a SL concept that they comprehend but are struggling to reformulate.  Cohesive beat gestures appear to help guide the interpreter through transitions and relationships between propositions. An example of a cohesive beat gesture would be an interpreter flipping their palm orientation while moving their hand from one side of neutral space to the other while interpreting a SL message about contrasting concepts.  Casey and Emmorey (2009), and Casey et al (forthcoming) decline to speculate as to the impetus for the CSG found in the bimodal bilinguals they studied even when their data might suggest that a beat gesture may be associated with something like a lexical search behavior as in this example of an iconic-beat gesture, “one participant held out his hand imitating Sylvester holding out a tin cup and bounced hishand with the accompanying speech ‘and takes his um tin cup’.” (Casey & Emmorey, 2009: 297).  Such an analysis may prove to be outside the scope of the proposed project as well.  However, I believe it presents fertile ground for research and presents the next step in this branch of study.

Sources:

Casey, S. & Emmorey, K. (2009) 'Co-speech gesture in bimodal bilinguals'.  Language and Cognitive Processes, 24:2, 290 - 312

Casey, S., Emmorey, K., & Larrabee, H. (Forthcoming). The effects of learning American Sign Language on oo-speech gesture.

Cassel, J. (1998) “A FRAMEWORK FOR GESTURE GENERATION AND INTERPRETATION” in Computer Vision for Human-Machine Interaction, Cambridge University Press

Eidsvik, C. (2006). Voice and gesture within the context of mirror neuron research.  The Journal of Moving Image Studies, 5, pages here.

Feyereisen, P. (2006) “Further investigation on the mnemonic effect of

gestures: Their meaning matters,” in EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2006, 18 (2), 185±205

Grosjean, F. (2011), “Those Incredible Interpreters,” in Psychology Today, September 14, 2011

Nagpal, J., Nicoladis, E., & Marentette, P. (2011). Predicting individual differences in L2

speakers' gestures [Electronic version]. International Journal of Bilingualism.

Streeck, J. (2009) “Gesturecraft: The Manu-facture of Meaning”

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Wesp, R.; Hesse, J.; Keutmann, D.; Wheaton, K. (2001) “Gestures Maintain Spatial Imagery,” in The American Journal of Psychology; Winter 2001; 114, 4; Research Library pg. 591

Interpreting Acronyms

The following is another presentation video I wanted to post somewhere prettier than the dotSUB website.  I'm using it for a teaching project for my pedagogy class.  I'm hoping that some time this summer I can post a write up to go with it.  Maybe something that can be used as a short training exercise or skill builder.

The video is a corporate advertisement for an HSPD-12 compliant CAC reader for networked peripherals by a company called Cryptek.  They made the video, I'm using it because it's a nice short piece showing how acronyms are used in government discourse.

As always, thanks for reading and please check back for more articles and skill development tools.