Cover not available
Article published In:
Special Issue in Memory of Irit Meir
Edited by Diane Lillo-Martin, Wendy Sandler, Marie Coppola and Rose Stamp
[Sign Language & Linguistics 23:1/2] 2020
► pp. 73–95

Lexical iconicity is differentially favored under transmission in a new sign language

The effect of type of iconicity

| Wellesley College
| Barnard College of Columbia University

Observations that iconicity diminishes over time in sign languages (Frishberg 1975) pose a puzzle: Why should something so evidently useful and functional decrease? Using an archival dataset of signs elicited over 15 years from 4 first-cohort and 4 third-cohort signers of an emerging sign language (Nicaraguan Sign Language), we investigated changes in pantomimic (body-to-body) and perceptual (body-to-object) iconicity. We make three key observations: (1) there is greater variability in the signs produced by the first cohort compared to the third; (2) while both types of iconicity are evident, pantomimic iconicity is more prevalent than perceptual iconicity for both groups; and (3) across cohorts, pantomimic elements are dropped to a greater proportion than perceptual elements. The higher rate of pantomimic iconicity in the first-cohort lexicon reflects the usefulness of body-as-body mapping in language creation. Yet, its greater vulnerability to change over transmission suggests that it is less favored by children’s language acquisition processes.

Keywords: language emergence, iconicity, vocabulary, Nicaraguan Sign Language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Stimuli and procedure
    • 2.3Coding
      • 2.3.1Variability
      • 2.3.2Prevalence of iconicity type
      • 2.3.3Changes in iconic elements within multi-sign compounds
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Variability
    • 3.2Prevalence of iconicity type
    • 3.3Changes in iconic elements within multi-sign compounds
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00044.pye
References (53)
Arbib, Michael A.
2008 From grasp to language: Embodied concepts and the challenge of abstraction. Journal of Physiology-Paris 102(1–3). 4–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Battison, Robbin
1978 Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.Google Scholar
Boyatzis, Chris & Malcolm Watson
1993 Preschool children’s symbolic representation of objects through gestures. Child Development 64(3). 729–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caselli, Naomi K. & Jennie E. Pyers
2017 The road to language learning is not entirely iconic: Iconicity, neighborhood density, and frequency facilitate acquisition of sign language. Psychological Science 28(7). 979–987. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 Degree and not type of iconicity affects sign language vocabulary acquisition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 46(1). 127–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Jenny, Rachel Magid & Jennie Pyers
2016, November. The effect of iconicity type on preschoolers’ gesture learning: A role for embodiment? Poster presented at the 41st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Coppola, Marie & Elissa Newport
2005 Grammatical subjects in home sign: Abstract linguistic structure in adult primary gesture systems without linguistic input. National Academy of Sciences 1021. 19249–19253. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coppola, Marie & Ann Senghas
2010 The emergence of deixis in Nicaraguan signing. In Diane Brentari (Ed.), Sign languages: A Cambridge language survey. 543–569. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuxac, Christian & Marie-Anne Sallandre
2007 Iconicity and arbitrariness in French Sign Language: Highly iconic structures, degenerated iconicity and diagrammatic iconicity. Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 361. 13–33.Google Scholar
Dingemanse, Mark, Damian Blasi, Gary Lupyan, Morten Christiansen & Padriac Monaghan
2015 Arbitrariness, iconicity, and systematicity in language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 191. 603–615. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emmorey, Karen
2014 Iconicity as structure mapping. Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences 369 (1651). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frishberg, Nancy
1975 Arbitrariness and iconicity: Historical change in American Sign Language. Language 51(3). 696–719. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gentner, Dedre
1983 Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science 71. 155–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan
2005 The resilience of language: What gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how all children learn language. New York: Psychology Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan, David McNeill & Jenny Singleton
1996 Silence is liberating: Removing the handcuffs on grammatical expression in the manual modality. Psychological Review 103(1). 34–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodglass, Harold & Edith Kaplan
1963 Disturbance of gesture and pantomime in aphasia. Brain 86(4). 703–720. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hodges, Leslie E., Şeyda Özçalışkan & Rebecca Williamson
2018 Type of iconicity influences children’s comprehension of gesture. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 1661. 327–339. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hudson Kam, Carla & Elissa Newport
2009 Getting it right by getting it wrong: When learners change languages. Cognitive Psychology 59(1). 30–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hwang, So-One, Nozomi Tomita, Hope Morgan, Rabia Ergin, Deniz İlkbaşaran, Sharon Seegers, Ryan Lepic & Carol Padden
2017 Of the body and the hands: Patterned iconicity for semantic categories. Language and Cognition 9(4). 573–602. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kantartzis, Katerina, Mutsumi Imai, Danielle Evans & Sotaro Kita
2019 Sound symbolism facilitates long-term retention of the semantic representation of novel verbs in three-year-olds. Languages 4(2). 21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanwal, Jasmeen, Kenny Smith, Jennifer Culbertson & Simon Kirby
2017 Zipf’s law of abbreviation and the principle of least effort: Language users optimize a miniature lexicon for efficient communication. Cognition 1651. 45–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kegl, Judy, Ann Senghas & Marie Coppola
1999 Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In Michel DeGraff (Ed.), Language creation and language change: creolization, diachrony, and development, 179–237. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kocab, Annemarie, Jennie E. Pyers & Ann Senghas
2015 Referential shift in Nicaraguan Sign Language: A transition from lexical to spatial devices. Frontiers in Psychology 51. 1540. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kocab, Annemarie, Ann Senghas & Jesse Snedeker
2016 The emergence of temporal language in Nicaraguan Sign Language. Cognition 1561. 147–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Magid, Rachel W. & Jennie E. Pyers
2017 “I use it when I see it”: The role of development and experience in Deaf and hearing children’s understanding of iconic gesture. Cognition 1621. 73–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayberry, Rachel & Susan D. Fischer
1989 Looking through phonological shape to lexical meaning: The bottleneck of non-native sign language processing. Memory and Cognition 171. 740–754. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meier, Richard P., Claude E. Mauk, Adrianne Cheek & Christopher Moreland
2008 The form of children’s early signs: Iconic or motoric determinants?. Language Learning and Development 4(1). 63–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meir, Irit, Mark Aronoff, Wendy Sandler & Carol A. Padden
2010 Sign languages and compounding. In Sergio Scalise & Irene Vogel (Eds.), Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding, 301–322. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meir, Irit, Carol A. Padden, Mark Aronoff & Wendy Sandler
2007 Body as subject. Journal of Linguistics 43(3). 531–563. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Competing iconicities in the structure of languages. Cognitive Linguistics 24(2). 309–343. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Motamedi, Yasamin, Marieke Schouwstra, Kenny Smith, Jennifer Culbertson & Simon Kirby
2019 Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: From improvised gesture to systematic sign. Cognition 1921, 103964. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Namy, Laura L.
2008 Recognition of iconicity doesn’t come for free. Developmental Science 11(6). 841–846. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortega, Gerardo & Asli Özyürek
2020 Systematic mappings between semantic categories and types of iconic representations in the manual modality: A normed database of silent gesture. Behavior Research Methods 521. 51–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortega, Gerardo, Beyza Sümer & Asli Özyürek
2017 Type of iconicity matters in the vocabulary development of signing children. Developmental Psychology 53(1). 89–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Overton, Willis F. & Joseph P. Jackson
1973 The representation of imagined objects in action sequences: A developmental study. Child Development 44(2). 309–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padden, Carol, So-One Hwang, Ryan Lepic & Sharon Seegers
2015 Tools for language: Patterned iconicity in sign language nouns and verbs. Topics in Cognitive Science 7(1). 81–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perlman, Marcus, Hannah Little, Bill Thompson & Robin L. Thompson
2018 Iconicity in signed and spoken vocabulary: A comparison between American Sign Language, British Sign Language, English, and Spanish. Frontiers in Psychology 91. 1433. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perniss, Pamela, Robin L. Thompson & Gabriella Vigliocco
2010 Iconicity as a general property of language: Evidence from spoken and signed languages. Frontiers in Psychology 11. 227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pizzuto, Elena & Virginia Volterra
2000 Iconicity and transparency in sign languages: A cross-linguistic cross-cultural view. In Karen Emmorey & Harlan L. Lane (Eds.), The signs of language revisited: an anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, 261–286. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Polich, Laura
2005 The emergence of the Deaf community in Nicaragua: “With sign language you can learn so much”. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Saffran, Jenny, Richard Aslin & Elissa Newport
1996 Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science 2741 (52941). 1926–1928. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy
2009 Symbiotic symbolization by hand and mouth in sign language. Semiotica 1741. 241–275. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, Mark Aronoff, Irit Meir & Carol Padden
2011 The gradual emergence of phonological form in a new language. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 29(2). 503–543. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, Ann & Marie Coppola
2001 Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological Science 12(4). 323–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, Ann
2010 The emergence of two functions for spatial devices in Nicaraguan Sign Language. Human Development 531. 287–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, Richard J.
2003 New ways to be deaf in Nicaragua: Changes in language, personhood, and community. In Leila Monaghan, Karen Nakamura, Constanze Schmaling & Graham H. Turner (Eds.), Many ways to be deaf: International variation in deaf communities, 260–282. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Sevcikova Sehyr, Zed & Karen Emmorey
2019 The perceived mapping between form and meaning in American Sign Language depends on linguistic knowledge and task: Evidence from iconicity and transparency judgments. Language and Cognition 11(2). 208–234. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siple, Patricia
1978 Visual constraints for sign language communication. Sign Language Studies 19(1). 95–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taub, Sarah F.
2001 Language from the body: Iconicity and metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Robin L., David P. Vinson & Gabriella Vigliocco
2009 The link between form and meaning in American Sign Language: Lexical processing effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35(2). 550–557.Google Scholar
Thompson, Robin L., David P. Vinson, Bencie Woll & Gabriella Vigliocco
2012 The road to language learning is iconic: Evidence from British Sign Language. Psychological Science 23(12). 1443–1448. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tolar, Tammy D., Amy R. Lederberg, Sonali Gokhale & Michael Tomasello
2007 The development of the ability to recognize the meaning of iconic signs. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 13(2). 225–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Nispen, Karin W., Mieke van de Sandt-Koenderman & Emiel Krahmer
2017 Production and comprehension of pantomimes used to depict objects. Frontiers in Psychology 81. 1095. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by 5 other publications

Flaherty, Molly, Asha Sato & Simon Kirby
2023. Documenting a Reduction in Signing Space in Nicaraguan Sign Language Using Depth and Motion Capture. Cognitive Science 47:4 DOI logo
Moita, Mara, Ana Maria Abreu & Ana Mineiro
2023. Iconicity in the emergence of a phonological system?. Journal of Language Evolution 8:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Bronkhorst, Johannes
2022. Mystical Experience. Religions 13:7 ► pp. 589 ff. DOI logo
Holler, Judith
2022. Visual bodily signals as core devices for coordinating minds in interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377:1859 DOI logo
Royka, Amanda, Annie Chen, Rosie Aboody, Tomas Huanca & Julian Jara-Ettinger
2022. People infer communicative action through an expectation for efficient communication. Nature Communications 13:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. 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.