Perspective in Argentine Sign Language narratives

MARTÍNEZ, ROCÍO ANABEL

Düsseldorf

Congreso; 16th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC); 2023

Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf

This presentation aims to analyze the strategies employed by deaf Argentine Sign Language (LSA) signers to conceptualize perspectives in LSA narratives, using a cognitive linguistic framework. Although there is a considerable amount of literature on this topic for signed, written, and spoken languages, as well as co-speech gestures, there has been no research conducted on LSA. According to Langacker (2008), perspective is a viewing arrangement that captures the overall relationship between the "viewers" and the situation being "viewed." Cognitive perspective starts with bodily viewpoint within a real physical Ground of experience (Dancygier & Sweetser 2012). In signed languages, the physical Ground is always present as they construct meaning through the signer's body and space. Signers use different physically visible articulators in space to construct one or more perspectives sequentially or simultaneously (Engberg-Pedersen 2015).I analyzed a selection of LSA narratives produced by adult deaf LSA signers and transcribed them using ELAN, including glosses with information on the strategies used to create and recruit reference, such as placing and pointing constructions (Martínez & Wilcox 2019; Wilcox & Martínez 2020; Wilcox & Occhino 2016). I also described the actions taken by other articulators, such as body posture, body orientation, and eye gaze, which have been shown to play a key role in other signed languages (Engberg-Pedersen 2015). Finally, I coded the perspective(s) used throughout each narrative and consulted with a deaf LSA signer who is part of our research team to ensure that the coding accurately represents the perspective(s) used from the point of view of deaf LSA signers.Our analysis revealed that, as in other signed languages, LSA uses three types of perspective: observer perspective, character perspective, and mixed perspective. LSA signers employ various articulators to establish a relation between what is being "viewed" and the "viewers." The body of the signer serves as the reference point from which other entities are described, narrated, and understood. Body orientation and eye gaze construct the links between the chosen perspective(s) and other meaningful locations (called Places), where other referents are created and recruited.ReferencesDancygier, Barbara & Eve Sweetser (eds.). 2012. Viewpoint in Language. A multimodal perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139084727.Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth. 2015. Perspective in signed discourse: The privileged status of the signer’s locus and gaze. Open Linguistics 1(1). 411–431. https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2015-0010.Langacker, Ronald W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.Martínez, R. & S. Wilcox. 2019. Pointing and placing: Nominal grounding in Argentine Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2018-0010.Wilcox, Sherman & Rocío Martínez. 2020. The Conceptualization of Space: Places in Signed Language Discourse. Frontiers in Psychology 11(July). 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01406.Wilcox, Sherman & Corrine Occhino. 2016. Constructing signs: Place as a symbolic structure in signed languages. Cognitive Linguistics 27(3). 371–404.