Perception study -- ASL vs. Gestures

[Adam Schembri]

Many gesture researchers use the term 'emblem' to refer to gestures that
are like lexical items in spoken and signed languages: conventionalised
gestures that have culturally-specified forms and meanings (the 'ok',
'thumbs up' etc). As others on the SLLING list have already mentioned,
some of these are widely recognised in different parts of the world, but
many identical forms have quite different meanings in different cultures
(the 'thumbs up' is used in some European countries to also represent the
number one, for example, whereas in Australia I think most non-signers
would use the extended index finger). Extending index and middle finger
with palm towards the body and moving the hand configuration upwards in
Australia and Britain was traditionally an obscene gesture, although I
seem to see this less often these days in Australia as the extended middle
finger gesture ('flipping the bird') has become more widely used.

I can't emphasise enough how important it is that sign language
researchers acquaint themselves with the gesture literature. I have
sometimes seen claims by sign language linguists about how sign languages
differ from gesture that really don't sit well with what gesture
researchers have shown.

Adam

-- 
Assoc. Prof. Adam Schembri, PhD
Director | National Institute for Deaf Studies and Sign Language
La Trobe University | Melbourne (Bundoora) | Victoria |  3086 |  Australia
Tel : +61 3 9479 2887 | Mob: +61 432 840 744
|http://www.adamschembri.net/webpage/Welcome.html






On 24/04/12 0:43 , "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU> wrote:

>Adam,
>What do you mean by "emblems"? Things like "come here", "stop", "hi", "be
>quiet"? Group membership or other (semi-)secret signs in the non-SL sense
>of "(secret) sign", such as gang or lodge recognition signals?
>Best,
>Mark Mandel
>
>
>
>On 12.04.20, at 8:52 PM, Adam Schembri wrote:
>
>> Don,
>> What do you mean by 'gestures'? Co-speech gesture? Emblems? Mime?
>> Cheers,
>> Adam Schembri
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 21/04/12 1:48 , "Grushkin, Donald A" <grushkind at CSUS.EDU> wrote:
>> 
>>> Has there ever been a study investigating whether nonsigners with no
>>> exposure to ASL or other signed languages can detect the difference
>>> between gestures and natural signed languages such as ASL?  I seem to
>>> think I did come across something like that once, but cannot rememmber
>>> where or who, if it's not a figment of my imagination.
>>> 
>>> --Don Grushkin
>>> ________________________________________
>>> 
>