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Article published In: Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 18:2 (2015) ► pp.167–204

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Rethinking constructed action

 | aDeafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London
 | bLaboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, San Diego State University
 | bLaboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, San Diego State University
Published online: 4 February 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.18.2.01cor
We aim to demonstrate the importance of defining linguistic phenomena by using constructed action or CA (i.e. a stretch of discourse that represents one role or combination of roles depicting actions, utterances, thought, attitudes and/or feelings of one or more referents) as an example. The problem is that different assumptions about CA have led to some apparent contradictions about the nature and characteristics of this phenomenon. Based on observations and analyses of British Sign Language narrative data, we outline criteria and recommendations for defining and annotating CA. We show that, in carefully defining the phenomenon in question and providing criteria for its identification, applying these criteria to usage data leads to emergence of particular types of CA. We also show how identifying these types can help resolve some of the apparent contradictions in the literature.
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2019. Clause constituents, arguments and the question of grammatical relations in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Studies in Language 43:4 ► pp. 941 ff. DOI logo
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2019. Agent defocusing in two-participant clauses in Finnish Sign Language. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4:1 DOI logo
Parisot, Anne-Marie & Darren Saunders
2019. La représentation corporelle dans le discours signé. Lidil :60 DOI logo
Parisot, Anne-Marie & Darren Saunders
2022. Character perspective shift sequences and embodiment markers in signed and spoken discourse. Languages in Contrast 22:2 ► pp. 259 ff. DOI logo
Puupponen, Anna
2019. Towards understanding nonmanuality: A semiotic treatment of signers’ head movements. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4:1 DOI logo
Quer, Josep & Markus Steinbach
2019. Handling Sign Language Data: The Impact of Modality. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Ferrara, Lindsay & Gabrielle Hodge
2018. Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction. Frontiers in Psychology 9 DOI logo
Garcia, Brigitte, Marie-Anne Sallandre & Marie-Thérèse L’Huillier
2018. Impersonal human reference in French Sign Language (LSF). Sign Language & Linguistics 21:2 ► pp. 307 ff. DOI logo
Garcia, Brigitte, Marie-Anne Sallandre, Marie-Thérèse L’Huillier & Hatice Aksen
2018. La référence impersonnelle humaine en langue des signes française. TIPA. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage :34 DOI logo
Herrmann, Annika & Nina-Kristin Pendzich
2018. Between narrator and protagonist in fables of German Sign Language. In Linguistic Foundations of Narration in Spoken and Sign Languages [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 247], ► pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
Lu, Jenny C. & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2018. Creating Images With the Stroke of a Hand: Depiction of Size and Shape in Sign Language. Frontiers in Psychology 9 DOI logo
Rinaldi, Pasquale, Maria Cristina Caselli, Tommaso Lucioli, Luca Lamano & Virginia Volterra
2018. Sign Language Skills Assessed Through a Sentence Reproduction Task. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 23:4 ► pp. 408 ff. DOI logo
Sallandre, Marie-Anne, Camille Schoder & Maya Hickmann
2018. Motion expression in children’s acquisition of French Sign Language. In Sources of variation in first language acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 22], ► pp. 365 ff. DOI logo
Schembri, Adam, Kearsy Cormier & Jordan Fenlon
2018. Indicating verbs as typologically unique constructions: Reconsidering verb ‘agreement’ in sign languages. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1 DOI logo
Ferrara, Lindsay & Rolf Piene Halvorsen
2017. Depicting and describing meanings with iconic signs in Norwegian Sign Language. Gesture 16:3 ► pp. 371 ff. DOI logo
Green, E. Mara
2017. Performing gesture. Gesture 16:2 ► pp. 329 ff. DOI logo
Frederiksen, Anne Therese & Rachel I. Mayberry
2016. Who's on First? Investigating the referential hierarchy in simple native ASL narratives. Lingua 180 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Frederiksen, Anne Therese & Rachel I. Mayberry
2019. Reference tracking in early stages of different modality L2 acquisition: Limited over-explicitness in novice ASL signers’ referring expressions. Second Language Research 35:2 ► pp. 253 ff. DOI logo
Frederiksen, Anne Therese & Rachel I. Mayberry
2025. Limits to resilience: investigating narratives in ASL signers who acquired their first language in adolescence. Language Learning and Development 21:4 ► pp. 374 ff. DOI logo
Stec, Kashmiri, Mike Huiskes & Gisela Redeker
2016. Multimodal quotation: Role shift practices in spoken narratives. Journal of Pragmatics 104 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Sümer, Beyza
2016. Scene-setting and referent introduction in sign and spoken languages. In The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 20], ► pp. 193 ff. DOI logo
Davidson, Kathryn
2015. Quotation, demonstration, and iconicity. Linguistics and Philosophy 38:6 ► pp. 477 ff. DOI logo
Davidson, Kathryn
2018. What belongs in the “logical core” of a language?. Theoretical Linguistics 44:3-4 ► pp. 227 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Italian Sign Language from a Cognitive and Socio-semiotic Perspective [Gesture Studies, 9], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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