Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Advance Access originally published online on April 27, 2005
The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2005 10(3):272-290; doi:10.1093/deafed/eni029
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Empirical Articles |
Comparing Action Gestures and Classifier Verbs of Motion: Evidence From Australian Sign Language, Taiwan Sign Language, and Nonsigners' Gestures Without Speech
University of Newcastle, Australia
University of New South Wales and MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, Australia
MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Recent research into signed languages indicates that signs may share some properties with gesture, especially in the use of space in classifier constructions. A prediction of this proposal is that there will be similarities in the representation of motion events by sign-naïve gesturers and by native signers of unrelated signed languages. This prediction is tested for deaf native signers of Australian Sign Language (Auslan), deaf signers of Taiwan Sign Language (TSL), and hearing nonsigners using the Verbs of Motion Production task from the Test Battery for American Sign Language (ASL) Morphology and Syntax. Results indicate that differences between the responses of nonsigners, Auslan signers, and TSL signers and the expected ASL responses are greatest with handshape units; movement and location units appear to be very similar. Although not definitive, these data are consistent with the claim that classifier constructions are blends of linguistic and gestural elements.
1 Duncan (2003) pointed out, however, that both representational systems can be operative in speech and in gesture (i.e., it is not necessarily the case that every aspect of speech is categorical or that gesture can only be analogic and gradient). 2 The VMP elicits only verbs of motion that use semantic and SASS classifier handshapes. Other types of classifier construction, such as verbs of motion that use body part classifiers or verbs of handling, are not relevant here. 3 The instructions for the hearing and deaf participants were thus slightly different. After some unsuccessful trials in which hearing participants produced only gestures that named the central or secondary objects and did not produce gestural descriptions of the motion event, we introduced instructions that reminded the participants of the nature of the task after each task item. In many cases, this meant that the nonsigners only produced a response with an action gesture, whereas the majority of responses from signers were in the form of clauses including lexical nouns and a verb of motion. It is clear, however, that this difference did not produce higher rates of matches to ASL targets in our nonsigning participants than may have otherwise occurred because our results were almost identical to results obtained in an earlier study of 10 nonsigners reported by Schembri (2001). In the earlier study, nonsigners were specifically instructed to produce both naming and action gestures. 4 The figures for the adult native Auslan and TSL signers differ somewhat from figures earlier reported by Schembri (2001, 2002). In earlier work, the results for handshape and location were scored differently. A match to ASL handshape targets by Schembri (2001, 2002) was scored on the basis of the hand configurations that were reported as possible in ASL in two sources: the ASL test battery manuscript (Supalla et al., n.d.) and Supalla's (1982, 1986) description of classifier constructions in ASL. This resulted in slightly higher percentages of correct responses for both Auslan and TSL. For the representation of locative relationships between referents, only the simultaneous production of a central object and secondary object on both hands was considered correct by Schembri (2001, 2002). If the locative relationship between central object and secondary object was described sequentially, this was not considered a match to ASL targets. This resulted in slightly lower percentages of correct responses for locative units. To facilitate comparison with the reports in the literature, the results presented here were scored strictly according to the scoring criteria outlined in the ASL test battery manuscript only (Supalla et al., n.d.). 5 These figures on the adult native ASL signers represent their results for all 120 test items, not the first 40 used with the adult native Auslan signers and hearing nonsigners. 6 The t-test degrees of freedom reflect adjustment for unequal variances. 7 The t' statistic in these comparisons is Welch's (1938) t, which controls against Type II error in comparisons involving unequal sample size. 8 It is preferable to collect data from deaf signing participants interacting with other deaf signers, rather than with hearing signers, because of the well-documented influences of language contact (e.g., Lucas & Valli, 1992). Nevertheless, we do not feel that failure to follow this practice with the TSL signers necessarily invalidates the data collected. It is quite clear from the interactions on the videotape that the four TSL signers saw themselves as providing data about their signed language use because the video includes many clear comments about the acceptability of particular classifier constructions. 9 We disagree with Cogill (2003), who rejected morphemic status for the handshape in classifier constructions because some signers accept analogic modifications of particular hand configurations (such as bending one finger in the 2legs handshape to indicate that the referent is limping). As pointed out by Okrent (2002), such gestural modifications of morphemes occur in English when lexical items (such as the word long) may be lengthened to indicate an increase in size or duration (e.g., "that lecture was really loooong"), so it is not clear if this is sufficient reason to reject the analysis of handshapes as morphemic. Correspondence should be sent to adam.schembri{at}bigpond.com.
Received June 3, 2004; revised November 12, 2004; accepted February 14, 2005