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In:Reference: From conventions to pragmatics
Edited by Laure Gardelle, Laurence Vincent-Durroux and Hélène Vinckel-Roisin
[Studies in Language Companion Series 228] 2023
► pp. 127–149

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When referents are seen and heard

A comparative study of constructed action in the discourse of LSFB (French Belgian Sign Language) signers and Belgian French speakers

 | Laboratoire de Langue des signes de Belgique francophone (LSFB-Lab), Namur Institute of Language, Text and Transmediality (NaLTT), University of Namur
Published online: 2 February 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.228.07van
Abstract
Constructed action is a referential strategy whereby signers and speakers use their bodies and/or voices to depict referents and their actions. Using a corpus-based study, this chapter compares constructed action in LSFB and Belgian French. It shows both that LSFB signers use constructed action to denote referents more frequently than Belgian French speakers do and that the two language communities use an overlapping set of articulators to enact referents. However, it also sheds light on differences in the use of these articulators, notably facial expression and the use of hand and arm movements, across LSFB and Belgian French. By documenting this referential strategy in a signed and a spoken language, this study informs the field of comparative semiotics.
Article outline
  • 1.Reference in signed and spoken languages
    • 1.1Referring in a signed language and its ambient spoken language: An illustration
    • 1.2Reference, a multimodal and semiotically composite phenomenon
    • 1.3Referring with constructed action across signed and spoken languages
      • 1.3.1Frequency of use
      • 1.3.2Orchestrating different articulators to enact referents
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Corpus selection
    • 2.2Annotation procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Frequency of CA
    • 3.2Frequency of articulator activation
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Lepeut, Alysson, Clara Lombart, Sébastien Vandenitte & Laurence Meurant
2024. Spoken and signed languages hand in hand: parallel and directly comparable corpora of French Belgian Sign Language (lsfb) and French. Corpora 19:2 ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
Lepeut, Alysson, Clara Lombart, Sébastien Vandenitte & Laurence Meurant
2025. Make It a Double: The Building and Use of the LSFB and FRAPé Corpora to Study and Compare French Belgian Sign Language and Belgian French. In How to Do Things with Corpora [Linguistik in Empirie und Theorie/Empirical and Theoretical Linguistics, ], ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo

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