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Article published In:
Gesture
Vol. 17:3 (2018) ► pp.330–374

Negation in San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language

The integration and adaptation of conventional gestures

| Lund University
| University of California, Santa Barbara

Sign languages do not arise from thin air: rather, they emerge in communities where conventions are already in place for using gesture. Little research has considered how these conventions are retained and/or adapted as gestures are integrated into emerging sign language lexicons. Here we describe a set of five gestures that are used to convey negative meanings by both speakers and signers in a single community: the San Juan Quiahije municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico. We show that all of the form-meaning mappings present for non-signers are retained by signers as they integrate the gestures into their lexicon. Interestingly, additional meanings are mapped to the gesture forms by signers – a phenomenon that appears to originate with deaf signers in particular. In light of this evidence, we argue that accounts of ‘wholesale borrowing’ of gestures into emerging sign languages is overly simplistic: signers evidently adapt gestures as they integrate them into their emerging lexicons.

Keywords: gesture, emblems, recurrent, conventional, sign language, language emergence, lexicon, conventionalization, negation, Mesoamerica, indigenous, Chatino
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • The San Juan Quiahije municipality as a communicative ecology
    • Some terminological clarifications
    • Stability and change of conventional gestures in an emerging sign language
  • Negative conventional gestures in the SJQ communicative ecology
    • Identifying conventional gestures
    • Negative conventional gestures and their uses
      • WAG
      • TWIST
      • PALM-DOWN
      • PALM-UP
      • DEAD
    • Research questions
  • Methods
  • Form-meaning mappings for negative conventional gestures in SJQCSL
    • Quantitative overview
    • WAG
      • WAG in emerging sign languages: Precedents for integration
      • WAG use by deaf SJQCSL signers
      • WAG use by hearing SJQCSL signers
      • WAG: Interim summary and discussion
    • TWIST
      • TWIST in emerging sign languages: Precedents for integration
      • Use of TWIST by deaf signers
      • Usage of TWIST by hearing signers
      • TWIST: Interim summary and discussion
    • PALM-DOWN
      • PALM-DOWN in emerging sign languages: Precedents for integration
      • PALM-DOWN use by deaf signers
      • PALM-DOWN use by hearing signers
      • PALM-DOWN: Interim summary and discussion
    • PALM-UP
      • PALM-UP in emerging sign languages: Precedents for integration
      • PALM-UP use by deaf signers
      • PALM-UP use by hearing signers
      • PALM-UP: Interim summary and discussion
    • DEAD
      • DEAD in emerging sign languages: Precedents for integration
      • DEAD use by deaf signers
      • DEAD by hearing signers
      • DEAD: Interim summary and discussion
  • Discussion: Form-meaning mappings for negative conventional gestures in SJQCSL
  • Syntactic distribution of negative conventional gestures in SJQCSL
    • Introduction
    • Single- and multi-sign negative utterances
    • The emergence of conventions for predicate-negative gesture ordering
    • Discussion: Syntactic realization of negative conventional gestures in SJQCSL
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Author contribution statement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.18017.mes
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