<HTML dir=ltr><HEAD><TITLE>Re: SV: [SLLING-L] use of sign language in Jordan</TITLE>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>Sorry all, </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>regarding my last e-mail: I intended to use the subject Dorothea Cogill-Koez suggested but forgot to change it before hitting the send button... :(</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sonja</FONT></DIV></DIV>
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<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>Fra:</B> slling-l-bounces@majordomo.valenciacc.edu på vegne av Sonja Erlenkamp<BR><B>Sendt:</B> ti 02.10.2007 17:57<BR><B>Til:</B> A list for linguists interested in signed languages<BR><B>Emne:</B> SV: SV: [SLLING-L] use of sign language in Jordan<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>Ok, I'll try to give a short answer for now (both due to time constrains on my side and the wish to not loose all readers of this discussion).</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>1. I agree that iconicity is a mental process. Nevertheless are there a structural markers to trigger it. You mentioned that there is "something" you see. This something is very often eye gaze in the signed languages I have seen and analyzed and some other markers, some of them probably different from signed language to another (I have found some markers for Norwegian Sign Language for triggering "real space blend entities". )</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>2. I don't agree on the part that iconicity is only "etymological" and that it can be "re-perceived" as depicting. I think that signed languages make use of two differend (cognitive) processes/mechanisms. On the one hand we have iconicity as part of the creation process of signs. Many of these signs develop after a while - through entrechment - a fixed semantic - that's where we agree. Although these signs still might have some kind of transparent iconic look (not all of them have) the iconicity does not play any role in the meaning construction in a signed text or the decoding of the meaning of the particular sign and why not use the phonemes concept on them? I have no problems with that.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>In addition I think (that is where we disagree), that we also have signs and signed construction that need their iconic potential to trigger real space blend entities in order to construct meaning. They are not "re-preceived" as depiciting signs, they are actually different signs which are depicting to begin with. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>3. Both mechanisms described above go hand in hand in a signed language and make it a visually efficient communication system. And if you take a look at the behaviour of for example mouthing, sign-modifications and word order you'll see that it follows the two different mechanisms. And I don't think either of these mechanisms is going to disappear in the future, because they are the pillars of visual communication.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>And that is why I think the phoneme-system model is not sufficient. It is not entirely wrong, but it leaves us with descriptions of signs within one of these mechanisms, but gives no answer to the other. I am not against using phonemes for spoken or signed languages (actually I studied spoken language phonology and I loved it!), but I think we need a wider perspective to cover everything that is going in signed language communication.</FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>All the best</FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sonja Erlenkamp</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>Fra:</B> slling-l-bounces@majordomo.valenciacc.edu på vegne av dcogill@une.edu.au<BR><B>Sendt:</B> ti 02.10.2007 14:09<BR><B>Til:</B> A list for linguists interested in signed languages<BR><B>Emne:</B> Re: SV: [SLLING-L] use of sign language in Jordan<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
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<P><FONT size=2>>Sonja wrote:<BR><BR>Part A....<BR>> Personally I believe that many, if not allmost of all the parameters in<BR>a<BR>> single sign and including nonmanual features can (and often do) carry an<BR>iconic potential which makes them by definition non-arbitrary<BR><BR>Part B...<BR>> and that<BR>means again they could > not be phonemic in the sense of spoken language<BR>phonemes, because phonemes are<BR>> by definition arbitrary.<BR><BR><BR>I absolutely agree with Part A here - in fact I'd remove the 'almost' and<BR>say "....all the parameters in a single sign" do actually carry an iconic<BR>*potential*, at least - it's simply that in routine use that iconicity is<BR>not exploited or even consciously perceived. When a teenage signer<BR>discussing his school activities can even smoothly convert an ASL letter<BR>sequence like "TC" (for Total Commmunication) into a mime of smoking and<BR>drinking (oh dear - does anyone have the reference for that?) - then it's<BR>quite hopeless to try to identify and enumerate some kind of finite iconic<BR>potential in the component forms of each visible sign itself.<BR><BR>But doesn't the work of the 1970s, summarised in Klima and Bellugi's work<BR>(1979), show us that we shouldn't expect the level of visible form to hold<BR>the answers as to a sign's 'iconicity'? I would say that their work has<BR>shown that one must focus on the level of cognitive processing. It's at<BR>THIS level - the level of a signer's immediate, online intentions and<BR>perceptions - that a sign 'is' an abstract symbol, or a manual depiction.<BR><BR>So practically every time an ASL signer forms the ASL alphabet letters T<BR>and D it's processed as a simple, abstract symbol with a direct,<BR>unmediated cognitive link to its meaning — I'm sure we'd all agree. In<BR>fact K&B's work on sign assimilation processes, historical drift patterns<BR>etc, and the subsequent work on aphasias by Poizner and colleagues and by<BR>others since then, have shown that regular lexical signs, whether<BR>obviously potentially iconic or not, are at least *routinely* produced and<BR>perceived online (that is, during actual conversation) as if they were<BR>simple abstract counters directly triggering meaning.<BR><BR>Yet I guess it's equally agreed that the very SAME forms can suddenly be<BR>'re-perceived' as manual pictures, when a signer is so inclined. The key<BR>argument here is 're-conceived' - it's primarily a different *cognitive*<BR>process that's going on when this happens. Naturally, then, the sign can<BR>be physically morphed and manipulated in a way that no longer follows the<BR>formational rules of that sign, but this is a natural SECONDARY<BR>consequence of the re-conceptualisation. The real, important thing (I'd<BR>argue) is the switch in perception and cognitive processsing.<BR><BR>Yes, of course, the signer then must attach some signals to convey to<BR>their interlocutor "put on your picture-perceiving glasses right now and<BR>actively process this as a manual depiction, related to the immediate<BR>context, including the regular lexical meaning of the original sign I'm<BR>re-conceptualising"'. In Auslan CPs, which I argue with tedious<BR>persistence are ALWAYS manual depictions (just of a level of structural<BR>sophistication and conventionalisation that speech-based iconic gesure<BR>never reaches, and hence unrecognised by a speech-based model of<BR>communication) - in Auslan CPs the switch, according to Trevor Johnston,<BR>can be signalled by a pause - I also think (and Trevor Johnston may have<BR>also said...?) that Auslan signers tend to look AT their hands in these CP<BR>manual depictions, as if to say "this is something to be 'seen', not just<BR>immediately and unthinkingly linked to its meaning as a regular sign can<BR>be", and also that signers tend to look back up at the end of a CP<BR>depiction as if to say "see that? Got it?" - because after all depictions,<BR>however structured and convention-governed, are much less predictable in<BR>form than regular lexical signs that have citation forms.<BR><BR>But what happens to signal to the interlocutor that a *regular lexical<BR>sign* is to be re-conceptualised as a picture? A slowing of the sign? A<BR>knowing look? Extra body involvement? What do people notice? I know<BR>there's something, since even I can often pick 'this guy's switched to<BR>using the sign as a depiction not a symbol'. But what?.....<BR><BR>Anyway, the point of all this (I assure you there is one....:-)) is that<BR>if one models the relationship of 'iconicity' and lexical sign in this<BR>way, then<BR>1. one gets rid of "if there is iconicity, then there cannot be phonemes<BR>in signed languages"; the Part B of your statement above, which which I<BR>strenuously disagree - or at least, that I think it is logically<BR>unneccessary to agree with! ;-)<BR>2. more generally, one can accommodate the fact that the bulk of a system<BR>like a signed communication, so rich in superficial iconicity in its<BR>forms, can nevertheless be genuinely governed, at the online cognitive<BR>level, by all the same abstract grammatical structures as govern the most<BR>complex spoken language grammar known to man (or woman);<BR>2. one can perhaps, I think, solve the notation problem posed by 'iconicity'.<BR><BR>As regards the first issue, "if there is iconicity. there can be no<BR>phonemes" - I'd say this is just a mistake arising from focussing on<BR>iconicity as a surface phenomenon, and conflating that with what "must" be<BR>happening at the deeper cognitive level. If the underlying ONLINE<BR>PROCESSING of that sign is via the direct, abstract link to meaning,<BR>unmediated by online perception of the *picture* in the sign, then surface<BR>iconicity (in such cases) is a red herring - it doesn't matter at all!<BR>No?<BR><BR>This was Klima and Bellugi's — and Poizner's — lesson for us all, after<BR>all - old hat to us; at that moment of online use, for signers, a regular<BR>lexical form is routinely perceived as a collocation of formal structural<BR>elements that map onto a mental representation stored as a ...well, as<BR>whatever the phonemes of spoken languages are cognitively and neurally<BR>stored as. (Hence damage to the classic language areas, which doesn't<BR>affect picture perception, knocks out signed communication via regular<BR>lexical signs and grammar, but damage to the right hemisphere that affects<BR>picture perception and CPs doesn't affect regular lexcial sign, etc etc.)<BR>At a cognitive and neural level, THIS USE of regular lexical sign is as<BR>'phonological' as you please! It may not involve 'phones' in the sense of<BR>sound - but who cares? :-) - as long as we know we're claiming to be<BR>talking about the<BR>underlying, asbtract, formal elements of linguistic tokens (signed or<BR>spoken) which are processed via a direct online link to meaning.<BR><BR>Moving on to the second point; for the same reason, freed of the online<BR>control of the active principle of depiction, superficially iconic signs<BR>can of course go on to be governed in their online behaviour (routinely)<BR>by an abstract grammatical forces one might wish to impute, from<BR>principles and parameters (or whatever it cuurrently is) to<BR>historically-iconically-derived but now cognitively independent<BR>grammatical principles, such as most cognitive linguists believe govern<BR>spoken systems.<BR><BR>The third point is that this model frees one of the need to record<BR>'iconicity' or 'iconic potential' as an abstract, enduring property of<BR>each sign itself. It seems to me that it might allow us, rather, to<BR>simply use a bracketing or superscript line or somesuch, to show that the<BR>forms so marked have, in THIS CASE of use, just here been re-conceived, by<BR>these signers, as manual pictures.<BR><BR>Well, a superscript would arguably be a good strategy at the 'phonemic'<BR>level of sign writing! Or more accurately, since the term 'phonemic'<BR>really does become a misnomer here — that would be, arguably, a solution<BR>at the level of 'recording the cognitive construct through which a sign<BR>is constructed and decoded'.<BR><BR>At the ...oh, and now 'phonetic' is probably a misnomer too, albeit less<BR>badly! At the SR level of 'recording the actual visual forms produced',<BR>SR might record, rather, the *physical* signals that signal to the<BR>interlocutor "put on your picture-perceiving glasses"; the details of gaze<BR>change, facial expression, body involvement, rhythm change, whatever they<BR>turn out to be in a given signed communication system or a given<BR>individual case.<BR><BR>Still, either way, it's a whole lot simpler than trying to pin down<BR>'iconicity' in the superficial form of each and every sign itself— surely<BR>a quite impossible task, as well as a fundamentally unnecessary one. It<BR>would be moving the focus to the flip-side of Klima and Bellugi's 1979<BR>paradigm-setting work: it would be moving to defining the PICTURES in<BR>signs, as well as the SYMBOLS in signs, as primarily having being, not in<BR>the form iself, but in the minds producing and perceiving the forms.<BR><BR>Well, I was going to post something else discussing a point that Dan<BR>Parvaz raised, but I'm a wee bit embarrassed by the length of this post.<BR>I'm afraid I'm inclined to rave on a bit when it gets to my pet topic of<BR>the cognitive processing of signed communication systems. I do have a book<BR>in preparation that includes these arguments, so I wish I could say it's<BR>all in Cogill-Koez forthcoming, but with my workload at the moment I'm<BR>wondering if it the book will ever 'forthcome'!<BR><BR>Dorothea.<BR><BR>Dr Dorothea Cogill-Koez,<BR>Language and Cognition Research Centre<BR>School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences,<BR>University of New England,<BR>Armidale, NSW,<BR>AUSTRALIA<BR><BR>><BR>><BR>><BR>> ________________________________<BR>><BR>> Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger Get it now!<BR>> <<A href="http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline">http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline</A>><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>> SLLING-L mailing list<BR>> SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu<BR>> <A href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</A><BR>><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>SLLING-L mailing list<BR>SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu<BR><A href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</A><BR><BR></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>