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Deictic Pointing And Demonstrative Usage In American Sign Language, Paul Twitchell
Deictic Pointing And Demonstrative Usage In American Sign Language, Paul Twitchell
Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs
American Sign Language (ASL), like many different signed languages, has a systematic way of using pointing signs for multiple types of nominal reference. Possibly the most basic function of pointing is to indicate, direct and modulate reference to physical objects located in proximal and distal areas called exophoric demonstratives.
This study aims to investigate ASL exophoric demonstratives and how ASL fits within the different typological systems of demonstratives that have been documented (Diessel & Coventry, 2020). Several research questions focus on how signers direct attention to proximal and distal referents in ASL using an elicitation task. The two studies (adult …