This article focuses on a signed performance by a deaf Nepali man who communicates in natural sign, which is similar to home sign but with greater cross-signer conventionality. The signer skillfully employs pantomimic (“gestural”) and lexical (“linguistic”) repertoires for distinct pragmatic purposes. In the narrative frame, he uses pantomime to vividly enact his morning routine; in the metanarrative frame, he utilizes lexical signs to directly address the audience. By examining the two repertoires’ formal characteristics and their relationship to different frames, this analysis showcases the signer’s communicative competency, demonstrates the relevance of pragmatics and genre to studies of all signed communicative modes, and challenges the idea that gesture is what language leaves behind.

This article examines interactions between deaf and hearing people in Nepal that are conducted in natural sign, a mode of signed communication involving relatively small repertoires of conventional signs complemented by iconic and indexical strategies. Natural sign is an exemplary case for unpacking the claim that ethics is not only intrinsic to linguistic interaction but also grounds its very possibility. While this is ultimately true for all language use, natural sign heightens this quality and its consequences, in terms of both interaction (whether people understand) and analysis (how scholars understand whether people understand). Bringing together Nepali Sign Language users’ insights with academic theories of interaction, pragmatics, and semiotics, this article demonstrates the high stakes for deaf natural signers of being rendered intelligible or unintelligible by the “ordinary” ethical actions of their interlocutors.

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