Title
Body shift and head tilt in three sign languages: American Sign Language, French Sign Language and
Quebec Sign Language (Languages of presentation: BSL and English)
Short abstract
Regarding the question of typological variations for non-manual components, we propose a comparative description of body shift and head tilt in ASL, LSF and LSQ. We compare the distribution of selected forms (lateral, backward/forward and rotation) and functions (agreement, coordination, role shift, new information and contrastive focus) and we discuss the interdependence between these two non-manual behaviours in sign languages.
Long Abstract
Non-manual behaviour has been described in sign languages (SL) as playing a role at all levels of grammar and as being multifunctional, such that each marker can express several grammatical functions and the same grammatical function can be realized by different non-manual markers
(Herrmann and Steinbach, 2011). Among the many issues of interest in linguistic description of the scope of non-manual components in SL, in this paper we explore the question of typological variation.
More precisely, we explore, through three SL (American: ASL, French: LSF, and Quebec: LSQ), the notion of discrete units for body (BM) and head movement (HM) on the one hand, and the possibility of different configurations of BM on the other hand.
The forms of BM described in the literature on the grammar of SL - backward/forward lean, lateral tilt and rotation - are associated with several functions, namely contrastive focus (Wilbur and Patschke,
1998; van der Kooij et al ., 2006), subject agreement (Parisot, 2003) and role-shift (Engberg-Pedersen,
1995; Poulin and Miller, 1995; Quer, 2005). Even if specific marking functions have been properly attributed to different HM, it is not always clear if these markers are produced independently from the related BM (e.g. body shift and head tilt for subject agreement marking (Bahan, 1996), or topic marking (Sze, 2011)). Moreover, the different BM (backward/forward, lateral or rotation) are not always distinguished and are sometimes also treated as non-specified BM (e.g. Bras et al. 2004, for role marking).
Our analysis of elicited productions (12 narratives from the same depiction task) from 3 deaf signers will lead us to provide clues for the following theoretical questions: 1) Do the three SL make use of distinct forms (lean, tilt and rotation) of BM and HM? 2) Do distinct forms (lean, tilt and rotation) of
BM and/or HM have specific functions? 3) Do BM and HM have differential effects on meaning or are they varieties of the same markers?
Our results are based on a qualitative analysis using 2D video. All the video data was transcribed for manual and non-manual properties (including other features such as eye gaze) using the software
ELAN and coded according to form (lateral tilt, backward/forward lean and rotation) and functions
(verb agreement marking, coordination, role shift, new information and contrastive focus) of both HM and BM. The transcribed data also includes the coding of associate or dissociate positions of the head and body. Although exploratory, our first results show that even though both types of non-manual markers are found in the three languages, ASL, LSF and LSQ do not make the exact same use of BM and HM, since i) they have different distributions, ii) they mark different functions, and iii) there seem to be different degrees of interdependence between HM and BM. For example, in a general distribution the head is used significantly more often as a marker in ASL than in the two other languages.