Article published in:
Gesture
Vol. 15:2 (2016) ► pp. 192–223

Intensifier actions in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) discourse

| Kaye College, Beer-Sheva, and Hadassah College, Jerusalem
The study describes certain structural modifications employed on the citation forms of ISL during signing for intensification purposes. In Signed Languages, citation forms are considered relatively immune to modifications. Nine signers signed several scenarios describing some intense quality. The signers used conventional adverbs existing in ISL for intensification purposes. Yet, they also employed idiosyncratic modifications on the formational components of adjectives simultaneously to form realization. These optional modifications enriched the messages conveyed merely by the conventional forms. They show that signers can incorporate gradient modes of expressions directly into the production of the lexical items to communicate more diverse and explicit messages in context. Using a comparative semiotic approach allowed us to describe the synergetic cooperation manifested at the stage of utterance construction between formational elements which were more suited to convey gradient and analog meanings in context and those that were less suited and thus not modified.
Keywords: sign, gesture, Israeli Sign Language, semiotic, iconicity
Published online: 19 July 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.15.2.03fuk
References
Aronoff, Mark, Irit Meir, Carol Padden, & Wendy Sandler
(2003) Classifier constructions and morphology in two sign languages. In Karen Emmorey (Ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages (pp. 53–84). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
(1986) Intonation and its parts: Melody in spoken English. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, Mary
(1992) The visual world of BSL: An introduction. In David Brien (Ed.), Dictionary of British Sign Language/English (pp. 1–133). London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Brentari, Diana, Maria Coppola, Laura Mazzoni, & Susan Goldin-Meadow
(2012) When does a system become phonological? Handshape production in gesturers, signers, and homesigners. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 30 (1), 1–31. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cienki, Alan & Cornelia Müller
(Eds.) (2008) Metaphor and gesture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Nathaniel, Marcus Perlman, & Marlene Johansson Falck
(2013) Iconic pitch expresses vertical space. In Mike Borkent, Barbara Dancygier, & Jennifer Hinnell (Eds.), Language and the creative mind: New directions in cognitive linguistics (pp. 393–410). Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, David Quinto-Pozos, Zed Sevcikova, & Adam Schembri
(2012) Lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation processes in sign languages: Comparing depicting constructions and viewpoint gestures. Language & Communication, 32 (4), 329–348. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Sandra Smith, & Martin Zwets
(2013) Framing constructed action in British Sign Language narratives. Journal of Pragmatics, 551, 119–139. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Sandra Smith, & Zed Sevcikova
(2013) Predicate structures, gesture, and simultaneity in the representation of action in British Sign Language: Evidence from deaf children and adults. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 18 (3), 370–390. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana & Wendy Sandler
(2009) Visual intonation in the prosody of a sign language. Language and Speech, 52 (2–3), 287–314. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, Susan
(2005) Gesture in signing: A case study from Taiwan sign language. Language and Linguistics, 6 (2), 279–318.Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen
(1999) Do signers gesture? In Lynn S. Messing & Ruth Campbell (Eds.), Gesture, speech, and sign (pp. 133–159). Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Emmorey, Karen & Melissa Herzig
(2003) Categorical versus gradient properties of classifier constructions in ASL. In Karen Emmorey (Ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in signed languages (pp. 259–268). Mahwah: Erlbaum. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth
(1993) Space in Danish Sign Language: The semantics and morphosyntax of the use of space in a visual language. Hamburg: Signum Press.Google Scholar
Ferré, Gaëlle, Roxane Bertrand, Philippe Blache, Robert Espesser, & Stéphane Rauzy
(2007) Intensive gestures in French and their multimodal correlates. Interspeech, 690–693, Antwerp, Belgium.Google Scholar
Flecha-García, María L
(2010) Eyebrow raises in dialogue and their relation to discourse structure, utterance function and pitch accents in English. Speech Communication, 52 (6), 542–554. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fontana, Sabina
(2008) Mouth actions as gesture in sign language. Gesture, 8 (1), 104–123. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fuks, Orit
(2014) Gradient and categorically: Handshape’s two semiotic dimensions in Israeli Sign Language discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 601, 207–225. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Granström, Björn & David House
(2005) Audiovisual representation of prosody in expressive speech communication. Speech Communication, 46 (3), 473–484. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Guaïtella, Isabelle, Serge Santi, Benoît Lagrue, & Christian Cavé
(2009) Are eyebrow movements linked to voice variations and turn-taking in dialogue? An experimental investigation. Language and speech, 52 (2–3), 207–222. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles F
(1978) In search of Jove’s brow. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage, 53 (4), 243–313. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Trevor
(2013) Towards a comparative semiotics of pointing actions in signed and spoken languages. Gesture, 13 (2), 109–142. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Trevor & Adam Schembri
(2007) Australian Sign Language: An introduction to sign language linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, Adam
(1972) Some relationships between body movement and speech: an analysis of an example. In Aron Wolfe Siegman & Benjamin Pope (Eds.), Studies in dyadic communication (pp. 177–210). New York: Pergamon Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1980) Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance. In: Ritchie Key Mary (Ed.), The relationship of verbal and nonverbal communication (pp. 207–228). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
(2004) Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2008) Some reflections on the relationship between ‘gesture’ and ‘sign’. Gesture, 8 (3), 348–366. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2012) Language and kinesic complexity. Reflections on “Dedicated gestures and the emergence of sign language” by Wendy Sandler. Gesture, 12 (3), 308–326. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Liddell, Scott K
(2003) Grammar, gesture and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. & Robert E. Johnson
(1989) American Sign Language: The phonological base. Sign Language Studies, 641, 195–277. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. & Melanie Metzger
(1998) Gesture in sign language discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 301, 657–697. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, David
(1985) So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review, 921, 350–371. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1992) Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(2005) Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Metzger, Melanie
(1995) Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign Language. In Ceil Lucas (Ed.), Sociolinguistics in deaf communities (pp. 255–271). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Okrent, Arika
(2002) 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). In: Richard P. Meier, Kearsy Cormier, & David Quinto-Pozos (Eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken language (pp. 175–198). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Padden, Carol & David Perlmutter
(1987) American Sign Language and the architecture of phonological theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 51, 335–375. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perniss, Pamela, Robin L. Thompson, & Gabriella Vigliocco
(2010) Iconicity as a general property of language: Evidence from spoken and signed languages. Language Sciences, 11, 227.Google Scholar
Quinto-Pozos, David & Sarika Mehta
(2010) Register variation in mimetic gestural complements to signed language. Journal of Pragmatics, 42 (3), 557–584. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy
(2009) Symbolic symbolization by hand and mouth in sign language. Semiotica, 1741, 241–275.Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, & Diana Lillo-Martin
(2006) Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de
([1916] 1983) Course in general linguistics. Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye (Eds.), Roy Harris (Trans.). London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Schembri, Adam, Caroline Jones, & Dennis Burnham
(2005) Are classifier verbs of movement a blend of signed language and gesture? Evidence from Australian Sign Language, Taiwanese Sign Language, and non-signers’ gestures. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 10 (3), 272–290. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schick, Brenda S
(1990) Classifier predicates in American Sign Language. International Journal of Sign Linguistics, 11, 15–40.Google Scholar
Shaw, Emily P
(2013) Gesture in multiparty interaction: A study of embodied discourse in spoken English and American Sign Language. Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Shintel, Hadas, Howard C. Nusbaum, & Arika Okrent
(2006) Analog acoustic expression in speech communication. Journal of Memory and Language, 55 (2), 167–177. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Supalla, Ted
(1978) Morphology of verbs of motion and location in American Sign Language. In Frank Caccamise & Doin Hicks (Eds.), American Sign Language in a bilingual, bicultural context. Proceedings of the Second National Symposium on sign language research and teaching, Coronado, California, Oct 15–19, 1978 (pp. 27–46). Coronado, CA: National Association of the Deaf.Google Scholar
(1986) The classifier system in American Sign Language. In Colette Craig (Ed.), Noun classes and categorization: Typological studies in language (pp. 181–214). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2003) Revisiting visual analogy in ASL classifier predicates. In Karen Emmorey (Ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages (pp. 249–257). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tobin, Yishai
(1997) Phonology as human behavior: Theoretical implications and &clinical applications. Durham, NC & London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Wilcox, Sherman
(2004) Gesture and language: Cross linguistic and historical data from signed languages. Gesture, 4 (1), 43–73. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Ferrara, Lindsay & Rolf Piene Halvorsen
2017. Depicting and describing meanings with iconic signs in Norwegian Sign Language. Gesture 16:3 ► pp. 371 ff. Crossref logo
Fuks, Orit
2021. The distribution of handshapes in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL). Semiotica 2021:242 ► pp. 101 ff. Crossref logo
Gawne, Lauren, Chelsea Krajcik, Helene N. Andreassen, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker & Barbara F. Kelly
2019. Data transparency and citation in the journal Gesture . Gesture 18:1 ► pp. 83 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.