Many deafblind people use tactile sign language and interpreters in their daily lives. Because of their hearing and sight status, the role of interpreters does not only involve translating the content expressed by other deaf or hearing people, but it also involves conveying environmental information (i.e., multimodal communication regarding what is happening at a given moment to be able to understand the context). This paper aims to contribute to the field of tactile sign language interpreting by describing how two Tactile Swedish Sign Language interpreters convey environmental information to two deafblind women in a particular situation, that is, a guided visit to a cathedral by a hearing Norwegian speaker. We expect to find various strategies including the use of haptic signs (i.e., a system of signs articulated on the body of the deafblind person aimed to provide environmental and interactional information). After summarizing the small amount of existing research on the issue to date, we present our data and how they were annotated. Our analysis shows that a variety of strategies are used, including Tactile Swedish Sign Language, using locative points to show locations with some type of contact with the body of deafblind individuals, depicting shapes on the palm of the hand of deafblind individuals, using objects to depict shapes, touching elements of the cathedral with the hands or with the feet such as surfaces, and walking around. Some of these strategies are more frequent than others and some strategies are also used in combination, whereas others are used in isolation. We did not observe any use of haptic signs to convey environmental information in our data, which calls for further research on which criteria apply to use this strategy in a particular situation.

ResumenLa Lengua de Signos Española (LSE) se sirve de marcadores del discurso manuales y no manuales, entre otros mecanismos, para realizar discursos signados relevantes o pertinentes. Algunos de los marcadores extraídos en nuestro corpus tienen equivalencia en el español oral y otros no. El espacio en las lenguas de signos abriga el discurso y, además, en él se puede hacer ostensible -perceptible por la vista-su estructura. Uno de los mecanismos para lograrlo son los marcadores discursivos manuales y no manuales de la LSE. Gracias a la iconidad, algunas de estas partículas dejan constancia apreciable de los límites entre miembros del discurso o de todo el discurso. El significado procedimental que los marcadores portan, en el caso de la LSE, se entrevé en la propia forma del signo que lo especifica. El estudio de los marcadores del discurso en español y las investigaciones del espacio en las lenguas de signos proporcionan un marco idóneo para acercarnos a estas partículas en la LSE. Todos los elementos lingüísticos manuales seleccionados como posibles marcadores han sido cotejados con el fin de probar su autenticidad partiendo, para ello, de las propiedades gramaticales de los mismos en español y de su definición.Palabras clave: lengua de signos / de señas, marcadores del discurso, estructura del discurso, iconicidad, espacio. AbstractSpanish Sign Language (Lengua de Signos Española, LSE) uses discourse markers, among other mechanisms, to achieve relevant discourses. Some of the markers we have identified in our corpus have an equivalent in spoken Spanish whilst others do not. In sign languages, discourse is contained in space and within that space it is possible to make the discourse structure visually evident. One of the mechanisms to achieve this in LSE is the use of manual and non-manual discourse markers. Due to their iconicity some discourse markers show the boundaries of utterances or the limits of the entire discourse. The procedural meaning of the discourse markers can be seen in the perceptible shape of the sign. Previous research on Spanish discourse markers and the study of space in sign languages has provided a proper framework to examine these particles in LSE. The authenticity of these discourse markers has been confirmed by checking them against the grammatical properties and the definitions supplied by spoken Spanish Key words: sign language, discourse markers, discourse structure, iconicity, space. RiassuntoLa Lingua dei Segni Spagnola (LSE) si serve di marcatori del discorso manuali e non manuali, tra altri meccanismi, per elaborare discorsi segnati rilevanti e pertinenti. Certi marcatori tratti dal nostro corpus hanno un equivalente nello spagnolo orale ma altri invece non ce l'hanno. Lo spazio nelle lingue dei segni comprende il discorso ed, inoltre, attraverso lo spazio diventa percettibile (tramite il senso della vista) la sua struttura. Uno dei meccanismi per raggiungere questo scopo sono i marcatori del discorso manuali e non manuali della LSE. Grazie alla iconicità, alcune di queste par...

Reformulation is remarkably frequent in discourse and has been the subject of much work in spoken languages, both on written and oral data. Because of its metalinguistic nature, combined with its general aim of clarifying an expression, the act of reformulation offers a window to the way speakers process and adjust their expression in discourse. However, to date, the study of reformulation has hardly taken into account the now increasingly recognized multimodal and semiotically composite nature of language. This study aims to revisit the notion of reformulation from a multimodal perspective by comparing the use and semiotic composition of reformulations in the discourse of speakers and signers, as well as in the productions of interpreters. In doing so, we lay the foundations for a comparative study of discourse in signed and spoken language that accounts for the multimodality and semiotic complexity of language practices in different human ecologies.

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