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Article In: Sign Language & Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Negation in Balinese homesigning varieties

ORCiD logo with link | Tilburg University
 | University of Lancashire
 | Humboldt University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Drawing on semi-spontaneous conversational data from the Balinese Homesign Corpus (Satyawati, Ni Made Dadi Astini, Ni Made Sumarni, Ketut Kanta, Ranum Dara Valentin, Lauren W. Reed, Josefina Safar, Hannah Lutzenberger & Connie de Vos. 2021–2023. Collection “Balinese Homesign Corpus”. The Language Archive. [URL]), this exploratory, descriptive study examines the negation forms used by seven adult homesigners from four villages in the north of Bali. The two most frequently used manual negators are a palm-forward handwave, neg:b (51.5%) and a palm-sidewards handshake, neg:a (37.8%). However, neg:b is consistently combined with a headshake by all seven homesigners, a pattern also attested in the two sign languages closest to Balinese homesigning geographically: Kata Kolok and BISINDO. Examples are found where neg:a cliticises to its host, which has not to our knowledge been attested for homesigning in the literature. Two other manual negators are found, including a side-to-side selected index finger (neg:ix) that primarily expresses negative imperative (3%). Tongue protrusion is infrequent but seems to be primarily associated with negative existence and evaluative meanings, while open mouth appears to carry affective meaning.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1(Co-speech) Gesture and sign language
    • 2.2(Homesign) Studies using an ethnographic approach
    • 2.3Negation across (sign) languages
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants and data
    • 3.2Transcription and annotation process
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Manual markers
      • 4.1.1Cliticisation of manual markers
    • 4.2Non-manual markers
      • 4.2.1Non-manual only marking
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Negation in Balinese homesigning: Manual-dominant, non-manual-dominant, or beyond?
    • 5.2Same shared gestural-cultural input, varied patterns
      • 5.2.1Pragmatic modification: Negative markers in non-negative contexts
      • 5.2.2neg:ix as a negative imperative
      • 5.2.3Clitics
    • 5.3Language contact phenomena
  • 6.Challenges associated with analysing conversational homesigning data
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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