Repetition in Polish Sign Language (PJM): Discourse – grammar – information structure?
Language of presentation: English
This study focuses on two distinct functions of repetition from the perspective of discourse. First, we
want to investigate if Polish Sign Language (polski język migowy, PJM) has the so-called doubling
construction (DC) [Lillo-Martin & de Quadros, 2008]. Second, we would like to focus on repetitions that
show no influence on the semantics of the sentence, but rather play a crucial role at the level of discourse
and interaction between signers (we call them discourse-driven repetitions). We are not aware of any other
research on this subject for Polish Sign Language.
Our analysis is based on a careful examination of elicited data recorded for the PJM corpus project that is
currently being created in Poland. The empirical material that we have analyzed consists of nearly 20
hours of footage involving 6 Deaf participants, native or near-native users of Polish Sign Language. The
informants represent both sexes, different ages and different social status.
According to Lillo-Martin & de Quadros’s proposal, DCs mark empathic focus. DCs have also been
analyzed and discussed for other sign languages, including HKSL [Sze 2008], RSL [Šamaro 2008] and
NGT [Kimmelman 2010]. It seems justified to claim that DCs play an important role from the point of
view of information structure. Discourse repetitions also seem to be part and parcel of signed utterances,
although we have noticed that some signers use them significantly more often than others. Our paper
attempts to analyze the constructions in question using methods that have been applied to spoken dialog
corpora. It should be noted that repetition is very common in spontaneous speech, as illustrated in example
(1), taken from the British National Corpus. Various types of repetition have been investigated for many
spoken languages [see e.g. Aijmer & Stenström 2004]. We would like to compare our preliminary
findings on repetition in the PJM corpus material with the spoken-language dialog data extracted from the
Polish PELCRA Corpus (see example (2), with repeated elements in bold). Although it is not uncommon
to encounter repetition in everyday spoken conversation, it is striking that it is far more frequent in PJM
than in spoken Polish. Our preliminary observations allow us to propose the following typology of
repetitions in PJM, based on their function in discourse strategies:
(1)
driven by information structure (emphatic stress, doubling constructions, topicalization) –
intensification of information (example (3))
(2)
specification and clarification of information
(2.1) repetition of segments and whole phrases: e.g. new topic in conversation (example (4))
(2.2) quasi-reduplication (repeating synonyms) (example (5))
(3)
repetition for pragmatic goals of communication
(3.1) redundancy for text coherence purposes (example (6))
(3.2) showing social status (education, contact with other sign
languages) (example (7))
(3.3) compensating for differences between dialects of PJM (example (8))
EXAMPLES:
(1) English, BNC:
B: cos it'll, it'll come out, he'll say to me Sunday when were at home (...) he'll say, you know that
nightmare I keep having, it was that one, he will he'll say, and I'll say to him well
A: Same one, same one coming back
B: if, because, he saw what was going on, in a split second he saw what was happening, I mean it was,
it was (...)
(2) Polish, PELCRA:
startej marchewki startej marchewki za śmietaną z cytrynką i z cukrem. kurde jak laski wiesz. gdzie ja
się kurna tak opaliłem. a ja autentycznie się zrobiłem wiesz brązowiutki ale to tak sympatycznie
brązowiutki wiesz ?
(3) PJM:
A: MEETING FOURTH FEBRUARY
B: WHERE PLACE WHERE, MEETING WHERE
A: ‘Meeting is on the fourth of February.
B: ‘WHERE is the place? WHERE we meet?’
(4) PJM:
IX[LIGHT] DISTURB GLASSES CL:SHINE SIGN CL:SHINE DISTURB IX[LIGHT] @
CL:SHINE SIGN CL:SHINE SIGN CL:SHINE EYES
‘This light DISTURBS me, it REFLECTS in my glasses when I’m signing. It reflects when I’m signing,
reflects when I’m signing, shining into my eyes.’
(5) GO LANGUAGE GERMAN LANGUAGE GERMAN || CL: ATTEND LANGUAGE GERMAN
LEARN
‘I have German classes, German classes. I’m attending German classes to learn it.’
(6) SATURDAY FREE IX1 || SATURDAY SIXTH FEBRUARY SIXTH FEBRUARY SATURDAY
‘I’m free on Saturday. Saturday the sixth of February, sixth of February. Saturday’
(7) HAMBURG1 PLACE HAMBURG1 LEAVE HAMBURG
‘I went to HAMBURG [a PJM sign], to Hamburg [a DGS sign].’
(8) CL:GO CL:BABY'S_PACIFIER SHEEP CL:ANIMAL_WALK
CL:ANIMAL_WALK,
DOG1
DOG2
WATCH
TAKE_CARE
CL:TAKE_STH_UNDER_ARM.
CL:BABY'S_PACIFIER
WALK
NORMALLY
‘A little sheep with a baby’s pacifier is walking, walking with a baby’s pacifier but a dog (signing on the
neck), a dog (signing on the right leg) observes everything and takes care of the sheep by grabbing it.’
REFERENCES:
1. Lillo-Martin, D. & de Quadros, R.M. 2008. Focus constructions in American Sign Language and Lingua de Sinais Brasileira.
In: Quer, J. (ed.), Signs of the time. Selected papers from TISLR 8. Hamburg: Signum, 161-176.
2. Kimmelman, V. 2011. Doubling in RSL and NGT; looking for a unified explanation. Manuscript, University of Amsterdam.
3. Sze, F. 2008. Topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language. Paper presented at the 12th Symposium on Contemporary
Linguistics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China.
4. Šamaro, E.J. 2008. Dublirovanie predikata v diskurse russkogo žestovogo jazyka (Doubling of predicates in Russian Sign
Language discourse). Term paper, Moscow State University.
5. Aijmer, K. & Stenström, A.-B. 2004, Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora, Amsterdam: Benjamins.