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Article published In: Gesture
Vol. 15:2 (2016) ► pp.192–223

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Intensifier actions in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) discourse

 | Kaye College, Beer-Sheva, and Hadassah College, Jerusalem
Published online: 19 July 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.15.2.03fuk
The study describes certain structural modifications employed on the citation forms of ISL during signing for intensification purposes. In Signed Languages, citation forms are considered relatively immune to modifications. Nine signers signed several scenarios describing some intense quality. The signers used conventional adverbs existing in ISL for intensification purposes. Yet, they also employed idiosyncratic modifications on the formational components of adjectives simultaneously to form realization. These optional modifications enriched the messages conveyed merely by the conventional forms. They show that signers can incorporate gradient modes of expressions directly into the production of the lexical items to communicate more diverse and explicit messages in context. Using a comparative semiotic approach allowed us to describe the synergetic cooperation manifested at the stage of utterance construction between formational elements which were more suited to convey gradient and analog meanings in context and those that were less suited and thus not modified.
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