Multilingual and multimodal aspects of “cross-signing” – A study of emerging
communication in the domain of numerals
The study reported here involves communication between deaf sign language users with
highly divergent linguistic backgrounds who have no language in common and minimal
experience of meeting signers from other countries. Unlike the semi-conventionalised contact
language International Sign (e.g. McKee & Napier 2002), we look at the earliest, least
conventionalised stages of ad hoc improvised communication, called “cross-signing” here.
Free conversations were recorded from multiply matched dyads of signers, and this paper
focuses on three male signers with the following language backgrounds, who were in daily
contact over a five-week period:
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MH: Japanese Sign Language, written Japanese
MI: Jordanian Sign Language, written Arabic
MS: Indonesian Sign Language, written Indonesian
This case study focuses on communication involving numbers, including quantification, time
units, and calendar dates. We analyse data from the initial conversations of the three signers,
that is, their very first meetings (three conversations comprising just under two hours of
video). Our aim is to account for communicative patterns, use of linguistic resources, and
instances of miscommunication and/or conversational repairs in a little-studied type of
signing environment, co-opting approaches from Conversation Analysis (cf. Sacks, Schegloff
& Jefferson 1974 for speech, Baker 1977, Coates & Sutton-Spence 2001 for sign).
The pairs of signers can be said to operate in a multilingual and multimodal space, where, in
the absence of a shared conventional inventory, they make creative use of diverse
communicative resources, including:
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Signer using number signs from his own sign language
Signer using number signs from his addressee’s sign language
Signer using improvised iconic number signs (ad hoc inventions)
Signer writing numbers on the palm of the hand
Signer writing numbers in the air
It is evident in the data that the signed and written languages in which MH, MI and MS have
competence influence their signed productions. Considering the multimodal affordances in
terms of signing and writing, influences from writing systems can be a source of
miscommunication, as Japanese, Arabic, and Indonesian have different writing systems (see
examples (1), (2), and (3), involving dates and fractions). Considering the multilingual setting,
interference from a signer’s own sign language may also result in miscommunication. Thus
complex multilingual and multimodal repair and repetition sequences, self-initiated or
prompted by interlocutor (cf. Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks 1977, Schegloff 2000) occur in
the data.
Some of the conversational sequences are best viewed as a collaborative activity between two
signers working together to negotiate meaning. This is evident in their turn-taking behaviour
including overlapping turns and mirroring each other’s signed productions. The patterns of
turn-taking show that signers make a conscious effort to accommodate each other, repeating
each other’s signs and/or involving overlap in turns. A Conversation Analysis (CA) approach
(e.g. Jefferson 1986, Schegloff 2000) can account for some of these patterns, but it is also
clear that signed communication in this unusual setting has properties that are not easily
accommodated under conventional theoretical frameworks applied previously to spoken and
signed languages.
References
Baker, Charlotte: Regulators and turn-taking in American Sign Language discourse. 1977. In:
Friedman, Lynn A. (ed): On the other hand: New perspectives on American Sign Language. New
York : Academic Pr. pp. 215-236.
Coates, Jennifer & Sutton-Spence, Rachel. 2001. “Turn-taking patterns in deaf conversation.” In:
Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(4): 507-529.
Jefferson, Gail. 1986. “Notes on ‘latency’ in overlap onset.” Human Studies 9(2/3):153–183.
McKee, R. & Napier, J. (2002). Interpreting into International Sign Pidgin: An Analysis. Sign Language
& Linguistics 5, 1: 27-54.
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the
Organization of Turn‐Taking for Conversation.” Language 50(4): 696–735.
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2000. “Overlapping Talk and the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.”
Language in Society 29(01):1–63.
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail Jefferson & Harvey Sacks. 1977. “The Preference for Self-Correction in
the Organization of Repair in Conversation.” Language 53(2):361–382.
Schegloff, E. A. 0. 200“When ‘Others’ Initiate Repair.” Applied Linguistics 21(2): 205–243.
Summary of example interactions:
(1)
MI tries to ask MH when he arrived. MH answers with the Japanese SL sign for ‘June’ (which looks
like the number ‘6’), then self-corrects, signing, ‘No, it was earlier; it was May 29’ (which looks like
the numbers ‘5’, then ‘2’, then ‘9’). MI does not understand as he uses a different date structure.
MH realises this is the problem and signs ’29 / 5’ instead, with a traced ‘dash’ between the day and
month.
(2)
MI asks MH if he has many deaf friends, but MH does not understand MI’s sign for ‘friend’. MI then
signs ‘people’. MH, thinking the question is how many deaf people there are in Japan, answers using
a fraction ‘one in one thousand’, signing ‘one thousand’ (an iconic ad hoc invention rather than the
Japanese sign) followed by a horizontal line following by ‘one’, as this “bottom-to-top” structure is
the way to write fractions in Japanese. As Indonesian writing of fractions is “top-to-bottom”, and
there is already a miscommunication about the question being asked, MI does not understand even
after repetitions and repairs by MH.
(3)
MS wants to say that a group of deaf people will travel to London on 26 June. He signs the date
according to the order used in Arabic, first ‘six’ for the month, then ‘six two’ for 26, as spoken Arabic
uses “six-and-twenty” rather than “twenty-six”, and this is mirrored in Jordanian Sign Language. As
MI cannot understand these numbers, MS writes on the palm of his hand, and then writes the
numbers into the air, first writing and Arabic ‘6’, then self-correcting and writing the complete
sequence ‘6-2-6’, this time with a different order.