A modality-free notion of gesture and how it can help us with the morpheme vs. gesture question in sign language linguistics (Or at least give us some criteria to work with)

Okrent, Arika

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486777.009

Cited by 126 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The idea that ideophones can be a class of words on a par with nouns and verbs has become widely accepted in grammar-writing, though still less often practiced than preached (Ameka, Dench & Evans 2006). The hybrid nature of ideophones as the most gesture-like of spoken words led to crucial innovations in phonology and morphological theory, and currently enables a productive convergence with research on gestural expressive resources (Okrent 2002). The cross-linguistic prevalence of ideophones has contributed to a growing realisation that the lexicon combines arbitrariness and iconicity (Perniss, Thompson & Vigliocco 2010).…”

Section: Redrawing the Marginsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones

Dingemanse

2018

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

112

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Ideophones (also known as expressives or mimetics, and including onomatopoeia) have been systematically studied in linguistics since the 1850s, when they were first described as a lexical class of vivid sensory words in West-African languages. This paper surveys the research history of ideophones, from its roots in African linguistics to its fruits in general linguistics and typology around the globe. It shows that despite a recurrent narrative of marginalisation, work on ideophones has made an impact in many areas of linguistics, from theories of phonological features to typologies of manner and motion, and from sound symbolism to sensory language. Due to their hybrid nature as gradient vocal gestures that grow roots in discrete linguistic systems, ideophones provide opportunities to reframe typological questions, reconsider the role of language ideology in linguistic scholarship, and rethink the margins of language. With ideophones increasingly being brought into the fold of the language sciences, this review synthesises past theoretical insights and empirical findings in order to enable future work to build on them.

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Section: Redrawing the Marginsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones

Dingemanse

2018

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

112

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“…If this plurality marker retains its grammatical meaning outside the context of a noun, it should be considered fully morphemic. In other words, when applying modality-independent criteria to pointing signs and pointing gestures, as suggested by Okrent (2002), we might arrive at the view that at least some pointing signs and pointing gestures are equally morphemised. However, as…”

Section: Comparing Pointing Gestures and Pointing Signsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok

Vos

2013

SL&L

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“…uncategorial) and unconventional aspects of language production. Generally speaking, this semiotic use of the term gestural has become more and more typical in research into sign languages since the publication of works by, for example, Okrent (2002) and Liddell (2003). However, at the same time, defining gesturality in this semiotic way means that the underlying concept of gesture is approached very differently from the mainstream view, in which the notion of gesture is still primarily associated with the physical activity of the hands (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructed Action, the Clause and the Nature of Syntax in Finnish Sign Language

Jantunen

2017

Open Linguistics

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This paper investigates the interplay of constructed action and the clause in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). Constructed action is a form of gestural enactment in which the signers use their hands, face and other parts of the body to represent the actions, thoughts or feelings of someone they are referring to in the discourse. With the help of frequencies calculated from corpus data, this article shows firstly that when FinSL signers are narrating a story, there are differences in how they use constructed action. Then the paper argues that there are differences also in the prototypical structure, linkage type and non-manual activity of clauses, depending on the presence or non-presence of constructed action. Finally, taking the view that gesturality is an integral part of language, the paper discusses the nature of syntax in sign languages and proposes a conceptualization in which syntax is seen as a set of norms distributed on a continuum between a categorial-conventional end and a gradient-unconventional end.

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A modality-free notion of gesture and how it can help us with the morpheme vs. gesture question in sign language linguistics (Or at least give us some criteria to work with)

Cited by 126 publications

References 17 publications

Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones

Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones

Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok

Constructed Action, the Clause and the Nature of Syntax in Finnish Sign Language

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