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Signed and spoken language contrastive research: A multimodal approach
Edited by Sílvia Gabarró-López and Laurence Meurant
[Languages in Contrast 22:2] 2022
► pp. 322–360

A multimodal approach to reformulation

Contrastive study of French and French Belgian Sign Language through the productions of speakers, signers and interpreters

ORCID logo | University of Namur , Belgium
| University of Namur , Belgium
ORCID logo | University of Namur , Belgium | Stockholm University , Sweden

Reformulation is remarkably frequent in discourse and has been the subject of much work in spoken languages, both on written and oral data. Because of its metalinguistic nature, combined with its general aim of clarifying an expression, the act of reformulation offers a window to the way speakers process and adjust their expression in discourse. However, to date, the study of reformulation has hardly taken into account the now increasingly recognized multimodal and semiotically composite nature of language. This study aims to revisit the notion of reformulation from a multimodal perspective by comparing the use and semiotic composition of reformulations in the discourse of speakers and signers, as well as in the productions of interpreters. In doing so, we lay the foundations for a comparative study of discourse in signed and spoken language that accounts for the multimodality and semiotic complexity of language practices in different human ecologies.

Keywords: reformulation, multimodality, signed language, spoken language, interpreters, reformulation markers, depiction, French/French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB)
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Reformulation
    • 2.1Reformulation, paraphrase and markers
    • 2.2Reformulation, description and depiction
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Working definition of reformulation
    • 3.3Annotation scheme
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Use of reformulations in French, in LSFB and in interpreted data
    • 4.2Reformulation markers
      • 4.2.1LSFB
      • 4.2.2French
      • 4.2.3Interpreters
    • 4.3Types of reformulations: Source and responsibility
      • 4.3.1Self- and other-reformulations
      • 4.3.2Interlingual and intralingual reformulations
    • 4.4Semiotic modes and articulators used in reformulation structures
      • 4.4.1LSFB
      • 4.4.2French
      • 4.4.3Interpreters
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 1 July 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00025.meu
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