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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Coming back to the issue of the graphic representation of Sign Language (SL) discourse in SL linguistics research

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Coming back to the issue of the graphical representation of Sign Language (SL) discourse in SL linguistic research ✝Elena Antinoro Pizzuto1 and Brigitte Garcia2 1 ISTC-CNR Roma, 2 UMR 7023 SFL (University Paris 8-University Paris-Lumières & CNRS) This chapter is a tribute to Elena Antinoro Pizzuto (EAP). It addresses issues related to the graphical representation of discourse in sign language (SL) linguistics. This topic was one of the spearheads of EAP and the Deaf and hearing team she had established in the early 2000s and animated over the following decade, the Sign Language Laboratory (ISTC-CNR). This contribution is based on the many articles and talks that EAP and her team produced during this period (e.g. Pizzuto et al 2006, Antinoro Pizzuto et al 2010), as well as on an unpublished manuscript (Antinoro Pizzuto & Cuxac 2010). It also draws on the work of the second author (e.g. Garcia 2006, Garcia & Sallandre 2013), who inevitably assumes responsibility for updating some of the arguments used at the time. Thus, this chapter, which is intended to be as close as possible to EAP’s ideas, intertwines the voices of the two authors, all the closer as they shared the same theoretical framework, the “Semiological Approach” (e.g. Cuxac 1999, Cuxac & Sallandre 2007, Cuxac & Antinoro Pizzuto 2010). The chapter first reports on the issues we both believed are raised by the most widespread graphical representations of the signed discourse, namely “gloss-based notations”. Graphical representation that enables the reconstruction of forms (signifiers) is a prerequisite for the analysis of any language. The limitations of graphical practices in SL linguistics are pointed out from this perspective, firstly by highlighting the atypical nature of what is referred to as "glosses”. These glosses are no more than direct labelling of the signed utterances in the national spoken language (SpL), whereas, in the annotation of SpLs, a gloss is a secondary addition accompanying a primary representation of the forms of the linguistic material examined (Pizzuto & Pietrandrea 2001). The methodological biases resulting from these atypical practices are then presented. They are particularly striking when, as it is for the Semiological Approach, we consider as central the structures furthest from those of SpLs, the so-called "transfer structures" (mutatis mutandis, classifier constructions/depicting signs and role shifts/constructed actions, see Garcia 2010, Garcia & Sallandre 2014). Although so numerous in SL discourse (e.g. Sallandre 2003, Antinoro Pizzuto et al 2008b, Sallandre et al 2016), these constructions remain the most difficult to represent by glosses (see Johnston 2016). The issues related to these practices are finally both epistemological and ethical (e.g. Bucholtz 2000, Di Renzo et al 2009, Garcia 2016). It is precisely in a concrete attempt to overcome these challenges that EAP and her team experimented for ten years with the potential of the SignWriting system to transcribe the signed discourse (e.g. Antinoro Pizzuto et al 2008a, Petitta et al 2013). Although this experience was interrupted when EAP left us, it continues in her team members’ graphical practices (e.g. Petitta et al 2015). We do not claim to provide a turnkey solution to the problem at hand. We simply reaffirm its heuristic scope: the need to rethink the undeniable influence of national SpLs' writing on the way we describe SLs. References Antinoro Pizzuto, E., Chiari, I. & Rossini, P. 2008 [Antinoro Pizzuto et al 2008a]. The representation issue and its multifaceted aspects in constructing sign language corpora: questions, answers, further problems. In O. Crasborn, E. Efthimiou, T. Hanke, E.D. Thoutenhoofd & I. Zwitserlood (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora, LREC 2008,Marrakech, May 27-June 1, 2008 http://www.lrecconf. org/proceedings/lrec2008/), 150-158. Antinoro Pizzuto, E., Rossini, P., Sallandre, M.A. & Wilkinson, E. 2008 [Antinoro Pizzuto et al 2008b]. Deixis, anaphora and Highly Iconic Structures: Cross-linguistic evidence on American (ASL), French (LSF) and Italian (LIS) Signed Languages. In de Quadros R. M. (ed.), Sign Languages: spinning and unraveling the past, present and future. TISLR9, forty five papers and three posters from the 9th Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research Conference. Florianopolis, Brazil, December 2006, Editora Arara Azul. Petrópolis/RJ, Brazil, 475-495. Antinoro Pizzuto, E. & Cuxac, C. 2010. Emergence, norme et variation dans les langues des signes (LS) : vers une redéfinition notionnelle. Annexes I-II. I. Unités pertinentes dans l’analyse des LS : Exemples illustratifs d’unités lexématiques et de structures de transfert. II. Outils de notation pour les Langues des Signes : le problème nodal de la représentation des formes. Unpublished manuscript. Antinoro Pizzuto, E., I. Chiari & P. Rossini. 2010. Representing sign language: Theoretical, methodological and practical issues. In M. Pettorino, A. Giannini, I. Chiari, F. Dovetto (eds.). 2010. Spoken Communication, Cambrige Scholars Publishing, pp. 205-240. Bucholtz, M. 2000. The politics of transcription. Journal of Pragmatics, Volume 32, Number10, September 200, pp.1439-1465(27) Cuxac, C. 1999. The Expression of Spatial Relations and the Spatialization of Semantic Relations in French Sign Language. C. Fuchs & S. Robert, eds., Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations, Benjamins : Amsterdam, 123-142. Cuxac, C. & Antinoro-Pizzuto, E. 2010. Emergence, norme et variation dans les langues des signes : vers une redéfinition notionnelle. In Brigitte Garcia & Marc Derycke (eds), Sourds et langue des signes. Norme et variations, Langage et Société, n° 131, mars 2010, 37-53. Cuxac C. & Sallandre M-A. 2007. Iconicity and arbitrariness, in French Sign Language: Highly Iconic Structures, degenerated iconicity and diagrammatic iconicity. In Pizzuto E., P. Pietrandrea & R. Simone (eds), Verbal and Signed Languages: Comparing Structures, Constructs and Methodologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 13-33. Di Renzo, A., Gianfredo, G., Lamano , L., Lucioli, T., Pennacchi, B., Rossini, P., Bianchini, C. S., Petitta, G., & Antinoro Pizzuto, E. 2009. Representation - Analysis -Representation: novel approaches to the study of face-to-face and written narratives in Italian Sign Language (LIS) Spoken Communication. Colloque International sur les langues des signes (CILS), Namur, 16-20 novembre 2009, Palais des Congrès de Namur, Belgique. Garcia B. 2006. The methodological, linguistic and semiological bases for the elaboration of a written form of LSF (French Sign Language). In ELRA (eds), LREC 2006, 5th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation. Workshop Proceedings-W-15: 2nd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages, 31-36. Garcia B. 2010. Sourds, surdité, langue(s) des signes et épistémologie des sciences du langage. Problématiques de la scripturisation et modélisation des bas niveaux en Langue des Signes Française (LSF). Habilitation Thesis, University Paris 8. Garcia, B. 2016. Scripturisation, grammatisation et modélisation linguistique à la lumière du cas des langues des signes. In Écriture(s) et représentations du langage et des langues, Dossiers d'HEL, SHESL, 2016. 9, 238-253. Garcia, B. & Sallandre, M.-A. 2013. Transcription systems for sign languages: a sketch of the different graphical representations of sign language and their characteristics. In Müller, Cornelia, Cienki, Allan, Fricke, Ellen, Ladewig, Silva, McNeill, David, Tessendorf, Sedinha (eds), Body – Language - Communication, An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, (HSK) 38/1, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1125-1140. Garcia, B. & Sallandre, M.-A. 2014. Reference resolution in French Sign Language. Patricia Cabredo Hofherr & Anne Zribi-Hertz (Eds.), Crosslinguistic studies on Noun Phrase structure and reference. Syntax and semantics series, volume 39. Leiden: Brill, 316-364. Johnston, T. 2016. Auslan Corpus Annotation Guidelines, Sydney: Macquarie University, manuscript [http://media.auslan.org.au/attachments/Johnston_AuslanCorpusAnnotationGuidelines_F ebruary2016.pdf ] Ochs, E. 1979. Transcription as theory. In E. Ochs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Petitta, G., Di Renzo, A., Chiari, I., Rossini, P. (2013) Sign Language Representation: new approaches to the study of Italian Sign language (LIS). In L. Meurant, A. Sinte, M. Van Herreweghe, M. Vermeerbergen (eds) Sign Language Research, Uses and Practices. Crossing Views on Theoretical and Applied Sign Language Linguistics. Sign Language and Deaf Communities. Nijmegen: Boston/Berlin: Ishara Press and De Gruyter Mouton: 137- 158. Petitta, G., Di Renzo, A., Chiari, I., (2015) Evaluative morphology in sign languages. In N. Grandi & L. Körtvélyessy, Edinburgh Handbook of Evaluative Morphology. Edinburgh University Press: 155-169. Pizzuto, E., & Pietrandrea, P. 2001. The notation of signed texts: open questions and indications for further research. Sign Language and Linguistics, (Special Volume – Sign Transcription and Database Storage of Sign Information), 4: 1/2, 29-43. Pizzuto, E., Rossini, P., & Russo, T. 2006. Representing signed languages in written form: questions that need to be posed. In ELRA (European Language Resources Association) (eds.), LREC 2006–5th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation. Workshop Proceedings - W-15: Second Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages. 1-6. Sallandre, M.-A. 2003. Les unités du discours en Langue des Signes Française. Tentative de catégorisation dans le cadre d’une grammaire de l’iconicité. PhD Thesis, University Paris 8. Sallandre, M.-A., Di Renzo, A. and Gavrilescu, R. 2016. Various types of personal transfers (constructed actions) in nine sign languages. Poster, Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research Conference (TISLR 12), La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, January 4, 2016.
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hal-04373818 , version 1 (05-01-2024)

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Elena Antinoro Pizzuto, Brigitte Garcia. Coming back to the issue of the graphic representation of Sign Language (SL) discourse in SL linguistics research. Janzen, Terry and Shaffer, Barbara. Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics, De Gruyter Mouton:, pp.49-74, 2023, isbn/9783110703788/html. ⟨hal-04373818⟩
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