Towards a Classification of Weak Hand Holds

Abstract

Abstract:The two symmetrical manual articulators (the hands) in signed languages are a striking modalityspecific phonetic property. The weak hand can maintain the end position of an articulation while the other articulator continues to produce additional signs. This weak hand spreading (hold) has been analysed from various perspectives, highlighting its prosodic, syntactic, or discourse properties. The present study investigates corpus data from Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and Russian Sign Language (RSL), two unrelated sign languages, in order to question the necessity of a sign-language specific notion of 'buoy' introduced in the discourse analysis of American Sign Language by Liddell (2003). Buoys are defined as weak hand holds that serve as a visible landmark throughout a stretch of discourse, and several types are distinguished based on their function and form. In the analysis of nearly two and a half hours of narratives and conversations from NGT and RSL, we found over 600 weak hand holds. We show that these holds can be analysed in terms of regular phonetic, syntactic, semantic, or discourse notions (or a combination thereof) familiar from the linguistic study of spoken languages, without the need for a sign language-specific notion of 'buoy'.

Development of sign phonology in Kata Kolok

“…Different handshape sub-components show different modification rateshowever, substitutions and omissions are most common across all 'handshape' features (Table 2). Omitting or adding a second hand has been previously reported in other studies (e.g., Marentette & Mayberry, 2000;Pichler, 2012) and is also frequent in spontaneous discourse among adult signers (e.g., Kimmelman, Sáfár & Crasborn, 2016).…”

L’anatomie du proforme en langue des signes française :

“…Liddell a défini plusieurs types de balises, qui se définissent par un couple formefonction, formant ainsi une liste qui a été augmentée par la suite (Vogt-Svendsen et al, 2007 ;Mesch et al, 2013). Plus récemment, cette notion de balise, propre aux LS, a été remise en question (Kimmelman et al, 2016). Ces auteurs considèrent que si leur forme est effectivement spécifique aux LS, on peut leur associer des fonctions linguistiques de même nature que celles des langues vocales (LV).…”

“…Ce couple forme-fonction ne semble correspondre à aucun des types de balises relevées par Liddell (2007) ou ses successeurs. Cela semble, par contre, être une combinaison de deux des fonctions décrites dans (Kimmelman et al, 2016) :…”