An Exploratory Study of ASL Demonstratives

Morford, Jill P.; Shaffer, Barbara; Shin, Naomi Lapidus; Twitchell, Paul; Petersen, Bettie T.

doi:10.3390/languages4040080

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Senft, 2004 ). Not surprisingly, then, in sign languages used by Deaf communities, it is pointing signs that often function as demonstratives (Morford, Shaffer, Shin, Twitchell, & Petersen, 2019 ), suggesting a common underlying machinery.…”

Section: The Experimental Study Of Demonstratives: a Review Of Recent Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference

2020

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Language allows us to efficiently communicate about the things in the world around us. Seemingly simple words like this and that are a cornerstone of our capability to refer, as they contribute to guiding the attention of our addressee to the specific entity we are talking about. Such demonstratives are acquired early in life, ubiquitous in everyday talk, often closely tied to our gestural communicative abilities, and present in all spoken languages of the world. Based on a review of recent experimental work, here we introduce a new conceptual framework of demonstrative reference. In the context of this framework, we argue that several physical, psychological, and referent-intrinsic factors dynamically interact to influence whether a speaker will use one demonstrative form (e.g., this) or another (e.g., that) in a given setting. However, the relative influence of these factors themselves is argued to be a function of the cultural language setting at hand, the theory-of-mind capacities of the speaker, and the affordances of the specific context in which the speech event takes place. It is demonstrated that the framework has the potential to reconcile findings in the literature that previously seemed irreconcilable. We show that the framework may to a large extent generalize to instances of endophoric reference (e.g., anaphora) and speculate that it may also describe the specific form and kinematics a speaker’s pointing gesture takes. Testable predictions and novel research questions derived from the framework are presented and discussed.

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Section: The Experimental Study Of Demonstratives: a Review Of Recent Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference

2020

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show abstract

“…Senft, 2004). Not surprisingly, then, in sign languages used by Deaf communities, it is pointing signs that often function as demonstratives (Morford, Shaffer, Shin, Twitchell, & Petersen, 2019), suggesting a common underlying machinery.…”

Section: Physical Factors Influencing a Speaker's Choice Of Demonstrative Formmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Demonstrative Reference

Peeters¹,

Krahmer²,

Maes³

2020

Preprint

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Language allows us to efficiently communicate about the things in the world around us. Seemingly simple words like this and that are a cornerstone of our capability to refer, as they contribute to guiding the attention of our addressee to the specific entity we are talking about. Such demonstratives are acquired early in life, ubiquitous in everyday talk, often closely tied to our gestural communicative abilities, and present in all spoken languages of the world. Based on a review of recent experimental work, we here introduce a new conceptual framework of demonstrative reference. In the context of this framework, we argue that several physical, psychological, and referent-intrinsic factors dynamically interact to influence whether a speaker will use one demonstrative form (e.g., this) or another (e.g., that) in a given setting. However, the relative influence of these factors themselves is argued to be a function of the cultural language setting at hand, the theory-of-mind capacities of the speaker, and the affordances of the specific context in which the speech event takes place. It is demonstrated that the framework has the potential to reconcile findings in the literature that previously seemed irreconcilable. We show that the framework may to a large extent generalize to instances of endophoric reference (e.g., anaphora) and speculate that it may also describe the specific form and kinematics a speaker’s pointing gesture takes. Testable predictions and novel research questions derived from the framework are presented and discussed.

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“…Finally, while pointing signs share many properties with demonstratives in spoken language, it is unclear if the deictic points of signed language are marked for distance, like most demonstratives in spoken language, or if they are distance-neutral, like the deictic points of co-speech. The only study we know that has been explicitly concerned with the expression of distance in signed language is Morford et al (2019) . Using an experimental paradigm in which bilingual signers of American sign language had to coordinate their actions in a cooperative task, these researchers observed that points to distal referents were often accompanied by “facial compressions” such as eye squinting, head tilt and cheek raising, which only rarely appeared with points to proximal referents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstratives in Spatial Language and Social Interaction: An Interdisciplinary Review

Diessel

Coventry

2020

Front. Psychol.

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This paper offers a review of research on demonstratives from an interdisciplinary perspective. In particular, we consider the role of demonstratives in current research on language universals, language evolution, language acquisition, multimodal communication, signed language, language and perception, language in interaction, spatial imagery, and discourse processing. Traditionally, demonstratives are analyzed as a particular class of spatial deictics. Yet, a number of recent studies have argued that space is largely irrelevant to deixis and that demonstratives are primarily used for social and interactive purposes. Synthesizing findings in the literature, we conclude that demonstratives are a very special class of linguistic items that are foundational to both spatial and social aspects of language and cognition.

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An Exploratory Study of ASL Demonstratives

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference

A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference

A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Demonstrative Reference

Demonstratives in Spatial Language and Social Interaction: An Interdisciplinary Review

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