35.1851, Review: Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics: Janzen and Shaffer (eds.) (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1851. Tue Jun 25 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1851, Review: Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics: Janzen and Shaffer (eds.) (2023)

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Date: 25-Jun-2024
From: Pamela Villar González [pamela.villargonzalez at rub.de]
Subject: Cognitive Science: Janzen and Shaffer (eds.) (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.2485

EDITOR: Terry Janzen
EDITOR: Barbara Shaffer
TITLE: Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics
SERIES TITLE: Cognitive Linguistics Research
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Pamela Villar González

SUMMARY

The book under review presents a collection of chapters about the
Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics, written
by experts in the respective fields in order to offer a shared
approach needed to understand, and when possible, to allow for
researching both fields in conjunction. This is the sixty-seventh
volume in the Series Cognitive Linguistics Research published by De
Gruyter Mouton, where Dirk Geeraerts and Dagmanr Divjak are editors,
and René Dirven, and Ronald W. Langacker are Honorary editors. This
volume is the first edition, was edited by Terry Janzen and Barbara
Shaffer, and published in 2023.

Though by reading the book it seems intuitive, the need to bring these
two fields of research together, that is to say Gestures and Sign
Language, is a fairly new idea . Not long ago, professionals from both
fields met at related conferences and laid the groundwork for this
book, which is intended to provide a very comprehensive and new
perspective. The advantages of researching either field, while taking
the last discoveries in the other one into account are clearly stated.
Furthermore, the book presents cutting-edge techniques and studies in
different languages.
In the section entitled Foreword, Cornelia Müller reflects on the
importance of pioneering work, with special focus on the work of
Sherman Wilcox, to whom the book is dedicated.

The introductory chapter: “Examining Signed Language and Gesture
Research Within the Domain of Cognitive Linguistics” by Terry Janzen
and Barbara Shaffer (the editors of the volume), presents key work in
the field, paying special attention to the work of Sherman Wilcox, as
this volume is a tribute to his key contributions in the field. Here,
the main themes are introduced as well,  as they are the sections of
the volume.

Part I:  Guiding Principles for Signed and Spoken Language Research

“Through the signed language glass: Changing and Converging Views in
Spoken and Signed Language Research”, by Penny Boyes Braem and
Viriginia Volterra
Guy Deutscher’s book: “Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks
Different in Other Languages” (2010) deeply impressed the authors of
this chapter, and is the starting point of it. After this reference,
the authors started thinking more broadly about the past and current
signed and spoken language research and how it has evolved.
Furthermore, due to their personal experience, they have seen that
many researchers in the field of signed and spoken language have had
similar views in different topics, which were influencing and
complementing each other's theories. This was not only the case for
these researchers, but also researchers of gestures. In order to gain
a deeper understanding, they have reviewed the available literature
and presented their conclusions separated into three different areas
that are:

1.       The view of language as a form of action
2.       The attention to multimodal behaviors
3.       The recognition of the role played by iconicity at all levels
of language and in major linguistic activities

“Coming back to the issue of the graphic representation of signed
language discourse in signed language linguistics”, by Elena Antinoro
Pizzuto and Brigitte Garcia.

In this chapter, the authors address the issue of scripturization,
referring to the difficulties that surround the graphic representation
of signed language. It presents both the advantages and disadvantages
of current and past solutions. Despite the many shortcomings of
SignWriting (a system for writing sign language, which is not based on
spoken language), it appears to be a ‘good enough’ solution for most
of the issues raised. The experiment with SignWriting showed that it
was easy for deaf people to learn, and that it was more representative
of their discourse than standard written language, where a spoken
version of language is transcribed.

What is language? A socio-semiotic approach to signed and spoken
languages by Paola Pietrandrea

This chapter once again stems from the works of Wilcox, and the author
tackles the question of ‘What is a language’. This is one of many
issues that Wilcox tries to answer during his career as a linguist. In
order to find the best answer and/or definition for ‘what is a
Language’, the author revisits theories from three prominent
linguists: Charles F. Hockett, André Martinet, and Noam Chomsky.
Despite the difference between these theories, all of them agree that
a language is defined by its openness, making the definition of it the
key to the theories. However, none of the three definitions is
compatible with what we know about sign language, making the three
definitions incorrect according to the author. Therefore, she presents
a definition by Tullio de Mauro based on the social, cognitive, and
communicative abilities of humans, not rooted in the structural
features of language. This definition is adaptable to both spoken and
sign language, and the adoption of this definition could have a huge
impact on the field of linguistics.

II Iconicity in spoken and signed language

Structure, iconicity, and access by Ronald W. Langacker
The author challenges the assumption of the arbitrariness of the
symbol, even for lexemes.

Langacker points out that Cognitive Grammar distinguishes among three
broad kinds of structures: a semantic structure (meaning),
phonological structures (which includes not just the sounds but other
observable modes of expression, like gestures), and symbolic
structures (in which the semantic and the phonological structure are
associated).

Moving to Iconicity, which “implies some kind of similarity between
two phenomena” according to the author, introduces the next question:
where does iconicity stop and structure begin? This question, together
with “What is similar to what?” gives form and focus to the discussion
presented in this chapter.

Differences in phenomena are just a matter of perspective, or even how
they function inside a larger configuration. These open up the
possibility of not focusing on the distinctions made by Cognitive
Grammar, and instead focusing on iconicity.

The conclusion of the chapter links the content with Wilcox’s
theories, and the chapter ends with this comment from him
“arbitrariness and iconicity coexist in linguistic structure as
manifestations of a deeper cognitive basis”.

When hands are things and movements are processes: Cognitive
iconicity, embodied cognition, and signed language structure (Corrine
Occhino)
Cognitive linguistics lays the groundwork for this chapter, especially
cognitive grammar, together with the field of Semantic Phonology. From
the starting point that Language is “… grounded in both procedural and
declarative knowledge along with embodied experience in the world”,
the author shows how starting from the aforementioned fields,
Cognitive Iconicity should be integrated into the studies of
Linguistics, in general, and specifically sign linguistics. With these
three pillars, it is possible to develop an embodied account of
grammar for both spoken and signed languages.

III Multimodality

Gestural meaning is in the body (-space) as much as in the hands (Eve
Sweetser)

The authors twist the typical transcription of gestures, both for Sign
Language and the study of gestures, giving special importance to the
location of the body. She points out how “the primary elements
transcribed are usually the shape, motion, and location of the hands,
followed by changes in gaze, head direction, facial expression, and
bodily posture”. According to her, the only exception to this is the
attention to the dominant vs. nondominant hand, where “a layer of
locational and orientational meaning is thus added to the patterns of
shape, motion path, etc.”.

Seeing this as a multi-layered model of gestural-spatial bodily
meaning, which is not related to the order of processing, but is
instead related to how the gestures are placed in relation to the body
and the environment.

Finishing with the compositionality of gestures, cross-cultural
differences, and the typology of gestures. Pointing out that we cannot
assume the meaning of some gestures based completely on different
cultures and points in time.

A Place for joint action in multimodal constructions (Laura
Ruth-Hirrel)

In this chapter, the language in interaction is analyzed, in this case
American English. The chapter focuses on the gestures made in the
space in the middle of the speakers, according to the author “The
location of interest is a region of space that, in many face-to-face
interactions, falls approximately midway between two interlocutors’
bodies, in line with the head and torso”. The author refers to this as
<<Interpersonal Place>> and analyzes and transcribes the gestures with
a chart of transcription conventions that is presented at the end of
the chapter.

The chapter presents several pictures from famous TV shows from the
United States to illustrate the points presented by the author. It is
worth mentioning that this author again highlights the importance of
framing the studies inside the Cognitive Grammar theory, as it
provides “conceptual unification of language phenomena across
different modalities: spoken, signed, and gestural”. With the
application of this theory, the author claims that it is possible to
access a more detailed understanding of gestures and their complexity,
which usually is overlooked in gesture research.

What I know is here; what I don’t know is somewhere else: Deixis and
gesture spaces in American Sign Language and Irish Sign Language
(Terry Janzen, Barbara Shaffer, and Lorraine Leeson)

Focusing again on the space where signs are done, the author claims
that the signers use the central space for speaking about what they
know (present and past), however when addressing things, they don’t
know (including the future) they are represented (signed) somewhere
else, but still within the central shared space in front of them.
Despite the majority of examples and analysis being drawn from
American Sign Language (ASL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL), the
chapter presents how different Signed languages used this space
differently. Some examples are presented on how the past is still
presented in front of the speakers (as it is something known), but the
future is not presented “further in this direction”, but behind as it
cannot be seen, which is interpreted as “the relationship between time
and spatial indexing in ASL and ISL is not straightforward”.

 Insights on the use of narrative perspectives in signed and spoken
discourse in Quebec Sign Language, American Sign Language, and Quebec
French (Darren Saunders and Anne-Marie Parisot)

The authors analyze the integration of enactment structures in signed
and spoken discourse. “Enactments have been identified in signed
language linguistics research as a phenomenon in signed language where
the signers assume the role of an actant to illustrate what the actant
has done or said. This is comparable to the use of direct discourse or
reported speech in spoken language, where an utterance is reproduced
by speakers to illustrate what  “has been said or thought”. Languages
studied in more detail are Quebec Sign Language (langue des signes
québécoise, or LSQ) as produced by L1 signers and L2 signers with
American Sign Language (ASL) or spoken French as their first Language;
ASL (L1 signers); and Quebec French (L1 speakers).

Despite the frequency of enactment being lower in spoken language, it
is clear that it appears in both spoken and signed language.
Formal linguistics and cognitive linguistics are discussed as
theoretical approaches to the topic, and the chapter finishes with the
proposal that the analysis of enactment, including lexical and
gestural elements, should integrate them into one complex unit.

IV Blending and metaphor
Exploring Real Space blends as indicators of discourse complexity in
Swedish Sign Language (Anna-Lena Nilsson)

The author presents an exploratory study analyzing the Real Space
blend structure, in order to identify indicators of discourse
complexity. The selected segments that were studied are from one
signed discourse in Swedish Sign Language (svenskt teckensprak or
STS).

Factors discussed are:
-          Which perspective does the signer use and switch between
such perspectives;
-          The identity, type, and location of blended entities
-          The number of blended entities
-          Whether the entities are explicitly introduced and
re-introduced or not
-          Which linguistic expressions (if any) are used about
entities

A background section, the study, and the description and analysis
follow the chapter. After a discussion of the analyses, the
conclusions and implications are presented.

Metaphors and blending in Italian Sign Language discourse: A window on
the interaction of language and thought (Tommaso Russo and Paola
Pietrandrea)
In this chapter, the iconicity of metaphors in signed language is
studied. The mechanisms that allow this and the relation between
iconicity and cognitive and semantic abilities are described.  The
theoretical background is provided by a collection of theories used in
the previous chapter “Blending Theory”. After the introduction of
discursive iconicity, the chapter follows with previous models of
interaction between iconicity and metaphors. After the other models,
the examination of the blending process including examples from a
corpus of Italian Sign Language, and metaphors collected in Rome is
presented. Before the concluding section, the question of “whether
linguistic constructs partially shape or influence our thought
processes?” is posed. In the chapter is suggested that sign language
allows us to see this question from a different perspective.

 V Grammatical constructions
The mouth shrug and facial consent in Danish Sign Language (Elisabeth
Engberg-Pedersen)

This chapter focuses on two facial expressions very common in Danish
Sign Language   (dansk tegnsprog, or DTS):
-          Mouth shrug
-          Facial consent

The two routes suggested by Wilcox are presented:
-          A gesture becomes a lexical item in a signed language and
may then grammaticalize in the same way as a lexical item
-          Gestures in the 2nd route are both phonologically and
semantically schematic

The 2nd section of the chapter presents the data that will be
analyzed. Section 3 presents the mouth shrug in both gesture and sign
language literature, and the analysis of the distribution and uses in
DTS. Section 4 does the same with the other facial expression
analyzed: facial consent. The last section, the discussion, focuses on
the results in the framework of Wilcox’s suggested routes.

Usage-based grammar: Multi-word expressions in American Sign Language
(Erin Wilkinson, Ryan Lepic, and Lynn Hou)

In this chapter, the authors support the call made by Wilcox in 2014
to move beyond structuralism, and take into account how experience
shapes the linguistic patterns. The authors present evidence
supporting the usage-based notion of recycling of sequential units, as
it is used in the study of multi-word expressions in spoken language.
The usage-based definition of grammar used by the authors is the one
by Bybee “the cognitive organization of one’s experience with
language.” They study four case studies of sequential constructions in
American Sign Language (ASL). Through photos and pictures, it is
possible to see how the signs are combined and change from when they
are presented alone. The signs presented have different degrees of
“fixedness”, meaning they can occur separated (independently from each
other), together in a different order, or even can happen together
(always in the same order) so often that it has blurred the boundary
between the separate signs.  In the following sections, schematicity
and complexity are discussed as well. The chapter finishes, by
claiming that adopting this approach (usage-based conceptualization)
will allow us to move to models of linguistic knowledge more plausible
from a cognitive perspective.

Possibility modals in Brazilian Sign Language and Argentine Sign
Language: A contrastive study (André Nogueira Xavier and Rocío Anable
Martínez)
The authors present a study inspired by several studies on modality in
ASL, but through a contrast study of Brazilian Sign Language (Língua
Brasileira de Sinais, or Libras, and Argentine Sign Language (Lengua
de Señas Argentina, LSA). These two sign languages are unrelated, and
it is hypothesized that Libras comes from the French sign language and
that LSA draws on important influences from Italian Sign Language. It
is worth mentioning, that despite the fact that these are two of the
most studied South-American sign languages, they are still considered
to be understudied languages, which makes clear the necessity to study
modals in other languages. After explaining modality in spoken and
signed languages, the methods are presented in detail. All the
challenges and shortcomings from this study (framework and method) are
presented.

The semantics of relative clause constructions in Iranian Sign
Language (Sara Slyavoshi)

The last chapter, before the conclusion, is devoted to the semantic
study of relative clauses in Iranian Sign Language (ZEI) from
different regions of the country. The study is based in the Cognitive
Grammar theoretical framework. The authors claim that these
constructions can be characterized as a reference-point relationship.
In the studied case (ZEI), a manual marker (pointing), and two facial
markers (raised brows and squinted eyes) were described and analyzed
as important markers of ZEI relative clause construction.

VI Concluding commentary
Language in the light of sign and gesture (Adam Kendon)

The content of the book finishes with this chapter of concluding
commentary by Adam Kendon. The author did not believe in the
separation between “language” and “gesture”. The chapter is, on the
one hand, a review of how we have arrived at the knowledge we have
nowadays about the addressed topics (spoken language, sign language,
and gestures), and on the other hand a commentary on some questions
that involve all of them. During the chapter, the author shows the
evolution of the definition of language, how it was researched, and
how some aspects were (later) reconsidered, like including in the
models the extralinguistic information. He concludes by stating that
the theoretical framework may not yet be available but calls attention
to some of the chapters of the book.

EVALUATION

This book has been conceived as a tribute to Prof Sherman Wilcox, who
was a pioneer in the necessity of merging gesture research and sign
language. Furthermore, he was always in favor of not studying language
“just” based on spoken language. The impact of his ideas and
publications is still visible in the new generations of researchers.

This book is for both beginners and senior researchers of language in
the broad term: languages in general, multimodal communication, i.e.
gestures and sign languages.

Every chapter stands alone and includes many comparisons with spoken
languages or gestures, which facilitates the comprehension in the case
of people coming from other fields of research.

Different aspects of language and communication are presented, and
examples from different sign languages are presented, which is very
refreshing and makes the book quite complete and interesting.

The only weakness I have encountered is that in some chapters the
quality of the images is not optimal, and it is not so clear the
gesture or sign that it represents. Maybe some online materials could
be helpful and make the gestures clearer to people interested in going
deeply into the content.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Pamela Villar González is a lecturer and researcher in the Institute
for Linguistics, Chair for Psycho- Neurolinguistics at the Heinrich
Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany). Her previous works are in
diverse fields like Neuroscience (memory, study of biomarkers in
healthy aging and dementia, sleep), Cognitive Neuro-Psychology (brain
development), and psycho- and neurolinguistics (brain lateralization
of language, whistled languages, language in autism). Her research
interests are mainly about language attrition, different systems of
communication, methods and techniques for researching, and Open
Science. Furthermore, she has her own Science Communication Project
through Social Media (Pamdemia Científica), and collaborates with
Brain Awareness Week, and Pint of Science among other projects.



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