The use of non-manual components for deixis and anaphora in sign languages 


Lerose Luigi 
Klagenfurt – 11 april 2014

SHOW - INDICATE

δεῖξις - deîxis (indication) δείκνυµι - dèiknymi

DEIXIS

(Bazzanella, 2005: 139)

Its use assists the economy of communication as it allows to reduce the number of full lexical elements in an utterance and it allows quick reference to all types of entities.

(De Jorio, 1832)

[...] We know that, by talking of mimicry, the eye is the helm of gestures. It gives you that their direction is necessary to recognize the precise meanings. So, it would be for us a fortune to learn in detail what move will make the eye to express those ideas that [...] wont to communicate to them. [...]

Locative Deixis +

non-manual components

Anaphora

(Green, 1990: 36)

“Anaphora is defined as referencing to an afore-mentioned word, phrase or a part of a phrase”.

Pizzuto (2004: 205): !

• Changing the direction of gaze • Changing the position of head, shoulders or the whole

body • Special changes in facial expression by which the

signer can embody referents he is reporting about. This is especially useful for narratives in which the signer then can represent different persons, avoiding to repeat their names or similar.

- Assuming the forms of the subjects (fat, thin, old, etc.).

!

!

-Changing the direction of the eyes, especially in the occurrence of a dialogue (down, if you are 'impersonating' an adult and upwards, if you are 'impersonating' a child, a person of short stature or an animal.

(Simone, 1990: 408-409)

"[...] The anaphoric chain serving to hold together the various statements that make the text smaller. The first element (which, in our case, provides the point of attachment to the rest of the chain) is the HEAD-CHAIN, each of the other is a RING chain. Anaphoric chains can have different length and consist of rings placed at a distance (also great) from each other.[...]"

!Bibliography !

- Amorini G., Lerose L., (2012), Studi linguistici in Lingua dei Segni Italiana (LIS) – Analisi fonologica e le funzioni deittiche ed avverbiali, e aspetti metaforici in parametri formazionali. Tesi di Dottorato [Ph.D. diss.], Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.

- Bazzanella C., (2005), Linguistica e Pragmatica del linguaggio – un’introduzione, Editori Laterza, Roma-Bari.

- Green G. M., (1990), Pragmatica. La comprensione del linguaggio naturale, Franco Muzzio & C. Editore, Padova.

- Pizzuto E., (2007), Deixis, anaphora and person reference in signed languages, in Pietrandrea P., Pizzuto E., Simone R., (a cura), Verbal and Signed Languages – Comparing structures, constructs and methodologies, Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp. 275-308.