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Degree, not kind: points are symbolic indexicals in

spoken languages and signed languages

Trevor Johnston Macquarie University

Register and Context 2013: Mode, Text and Texture

13-‐15 February

Some key quesIons •  Universal grammar

–  do SLs provide support for the noIon of Universal Grammar? (see Sander & Lillo-‐MarIn 2006 Sign Language and LinguisIc Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) e.g. Wh-‐Island Constraint, Subjacency, the Empty Category Principle (e.g., Padden 1983; Lillo-‐MarIn 1991).

•  Language typology –  are SLs typologically disInct? (e.g. two person pronominal system, Meier 1990 Person Deixis

in American Sign Language. In Fischer & Siple (eds) Theore*cal Issues in Sign Language Research, pp 175-‐190 Chicago: University of Chicago)

•  Language universals –  are pronouns universal? (e.g. Evans & Levinson 2009 The myth of language universals:

Language diversity and its importance for cogniIve science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, 429-‐492)

•  GrammaIcalizaIon –  theory/processes (aaested pathways) (e.g. (Coppola & Senghas 2010; Pfau & Steinbach 2011).

•  SociolinguisIc typology –  are the sociolinguisIc circumstances of SLs “special” and how does this impact language

structure (e.g., Trudgill 2012 Sociolinguis*c Typology: Social Determinants of Linguis*c Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press)

“Two person system”

Summary mainstream debate re SL pronouns

•  McBurney (2002) –  concluded pronominal points in SLs/ASL

are not ‘pronouns’ aher all –  suggested that this class of signs are

actually demonstraIves •  Rutkowski & Czajkowska-‐Kisil (2010)

–  suggested that the defining feature of SL ‘pronouns’ may only be ‘definiteness/referenIality’

–  not other features which are commonly associated with person marking

•  Cormier (2010) –  compared SL ‘pronouns’ to SpL

pronouns •  they do not fit many of the criteria so

actual status in SLs may be yet to be determined

–  raised the quesIon of the universality/transferability of this (and other) categories cross-‐linguisIcally and cross-‐modality

•  Todd (2009) concluded that “ASL-‐style poinIng […] should not be equated with any category in another language (such as pronouns) , or indeed with any other behavior (such as poinIng as performed by speakers of the ambient spoken language).” (p. 207)

–  suggested that this class of signs are highly iconic and gradient and that morphemic analysis of these signs in “no more than a crude approximaIon to the reality of ASL pronouns” (p. 167)

•  Nonetheless, sIll called them ‘pronouns’

Arguments for disInct form/meaning pairings with expected pronominal morphological markings are problemaIc

Ways to address the quesIon of the status of points in SLs

•  Strategy 1 –  review the debate within the research literature on SL pronouns, as

per previous slide –  engage with and conInue this ‘morphemic’ line of argument

(‘modern normalized’ view of SLs)? •  Strategy 2

–  respond with usage data on formal and funcIonal characterisIcs of poinIng signs (are they as claimed in the first instance?)

–  compare with points in co-‐speech gesture •  Strategy 3

–  re-‐appraise the semioIc status of poinIng signs, within context of the noIon of composite uaerances

–  recruit addiIonal corpus-‐based findings regarding sign types in face-‐to-‐face language regardless of modality

Strategy 2

Points (PTs) as pronouns in Signed Languages (SLs)

•  How do PTs funcIon in SLs? •  How funcIonally disInct is each type of PT? •  Are there any formal (morphological) differences between funcIonally disInct PTs ? –  assuming individual PTs have disInct or mutually exclusive funcIons

•  PTs that have a primary pronominal funcIon (“tracking-‐of-‐discourse-‐referents-‐funcIon”) –  do they have idenIfiable morphological markings for features associated with pronouns cross-‐linguisIcally (person, number, gender, possession, reflexiveness)?

–  are they acquired in the same way as pronouns in SpLs?

The data

•  Corpus –  size, parIcipants, text types

•  Coding –  annotaIons –  ID-‐glosses –  glossing of points

•  PT:PRO •  PT:LOC •  PT:DET

ELAN sampler

The findings

•  Primary funcIon •  Handedness •  DuraIon •  Handshapes •  Palm orientaIon •  Gaze direcIon •  Movement/plurality •  Possessive points

Primary funcIon

Handedness: strong & weak hand points

DuraIon (& handedness)

A double handed point

ABOUT PERHAPS THIRTY FORTY DEAF STUDENT PT:LOC AREA “about perhaps thirty to forty deaf students in the area here-‐abouts”

A held weak hand point

WHY-‐BECAUSE PT:DET TEACHER NOT UNDERSTAND SIGN THERE……………………………………………………………………………. “because the teacher there does not understand sign language”

The handshapes found in points

Handshape

Palm orientaIon

Gaze direcIon

ModificaIon for plurality (movement, hands, handshape)

Plural marking for third person


Plural marking for first person

Possessive points

Handshape & palm in possessives

SyntacIc distribuIon? •  quintessenIal face-‐to-‐face languages •  problems with the representaIon of SLs

–  mulI-‐channel, use of space (linear transcripIon?) –  compounded by issues of naIveness (intuiIons, elicitaIons,

experiments) •  absence of any true linguisIc corpora of any SL prior to Johnston

2004 –  evidence for type of mulI-‐sign construcIons, i.e., clauses or ‘clause

like units’ (CLU), almost non-‐existent –  not only are all text types are face-‐to-‐face but difficult/impossible to

compare because not ‘captured’ in transcripIon and/or annotated corpora

•  CLU annotaIon begun in Auslan Corpus (c. 2006), soon will have enough for analysis –  ‘telling’ vs ‘showing’

Discussion

•  Encoding of person categories –  contact morphemes –  handshape morphemes –  orientaIon morphemes –  movement morphemes –  non-‐manual morphemes

•  SyntacIc distribuIon? –  thumb poinIng (but definiIon of sign)

–  Nicaragua SL, but small dataset, exclusion of signs

•  AcquisiIon data •  Co-‐speech gesture data

Contact morphemes?

•  LocaIon as grammaIcalized morpheme, e.g. chest in obligatory contact vs poinIng of first person pronoun (Engberg-‐Pedersen 1993, Meier 1990) – ASL (McBurney) counter examples available – Random sample of Auslan corpus found 10% did not contact

Handshape morphemes? •  Handshape as grammaIcalized morpheme, e.g. obligatory point (index finger) handshape on non-‐first person pronouns (Engberg-‐Pedersen 1993) –  Counter examples plenIful in Auslan corpus (other SLs? even DSL?)

•  Handshape as grammaIcalized morpheme, not number incorporaIon, e.g. K not 2 in first person pronoun (Liddell 2003, McBurney 2002) –  simply producIon constraints (Todd 2009, Johnston 1989)

•  Elsewhere (3rd person) this is simply number incorporaIon not disInct morpheme (again, Liddell 2003, McBurney 2002)

OrientaIon morpheme?

Natural palm orientaIons during egocentric points and their extensions

Movement morphemes?

•  Movement as grammaIcalized morpheme, e.g. obligatory coded sweep/arc/circles for plurals) – “counter examples” plenIful in Auslan corpus, ohen (majority?) no modificaIon to a point for a plural referent

– also reported for other SLs (e.g. Indo-‐Pakistani SL)

Non-‐manual morphemes? e.g. eye-‐gaze

•  Meier’s “two person” pronoun system –  gaze does not disInguish 2nd (addressee) from 3rd person (60%) Lillo-‐MarIn & Meier (2011).

–  supported by Thompson (2011) eye-‐tracking agreement data •  Berenz (2002) Brazilian SL, Aliasic & Wilbur (2006) for

CroaIan SL have eye-‐gaze disInct for 2nd and 3rd (so reject Meier’s 2 person system) –  claiming the person system is not typologically unique (assuming eye-‐gaze is ‘morphemic’ or ‘encoding’)

–  supported by Johnston (2013) corpus data (almost categorical at 97%)

•  But, Johnston (2013) says eye-‐gaze is gestural/indexic, not morphemic, and that eye-‐tracking/gaze data thus actually has no bearing whatsoever on whether these points are pronouns or not –  the data are the same for gestural points

SyntacIc distribuIon

•  not only no comprehensive corpus data, but also –  selecIve data (Emmorey and thumb points)

•  example of an exclusion (last slide)

– minimal data Coppola & Senghas 2010 (Nicaraguan SL)

•  posiIon of PTs relaIve to ‘nouns’ and ‘verbs’ but no clause based analysis

•  50 examples (Auslan corpus >10,000)

•  at best hypotheses that need tesIng, not discoveries of fact

AcquisiIon: criIque of PeIao (1987) •  cited as evidence for the autonomy

of language and gesture –  SL points are not gestures but fully-‐

linguisIc signs (e.g. pronouns)

•  putaIve ‘disconInuity’ between gestural deixis and linguisIc poinIng (pronouns)

–  U-‐shaped curve, pronoun reversals

•  miniscule dataset –  phenomenon (pronoun reversal) rare –  nonetheless aaested –  the dangers of overgeneralizaIon

•  instances open to alternaIve interpretaIons

–  “person-‐in-‐speech-‐role-‐referencing” –  imitaIon vs enunciaIon –  usage without comprehension

•  PT:PRO2SG (YOU), PT:PRO1SG (ME) –  misunderstood as ‘a type of name’

•  an overgeneralizaIon

–  the u-‐shaped curve in language acquisiIon (e.g. Slobin 1986)

•  appearance-‐disappearance-‐reappearance phases (if genuine) also aaested in other linguisIc phenomena

•  reappearance completely compaIble with ‘reconciliaIon’ as gestural deixis (rather than reintegraIon as ‘purely linguisIc’)

•  If the SL point-‐pronoun ME is actually morphemic (e.g. arguments for first/non-‐first person disIncIon), then why was this not ‘learnt-‐as-‐name’ (morphemic non-‐gestural deixis) in first instance? (cf Todd 2009)

PutaIve disconInuity & reversals ≠ reintegraIon as “purely linguisIc”

AddiIonal acquisiIon data

•  Aaempt to confirm or disconfirm using either –  larger datasets –  other acquisiIon

environments (ie, SpLs, or bilingual SL/SpL)

–  other SLs •  LSF & Sp French (Morgenstern

et al 2010) & GreekSL (Hatzopoulou 2010) –  poinIng/’pronoun’

acquisiIon •  no disconInuity •  few or no reversal errors

•  thus perhaps poinIng signs are the phenomenon/category under consideraIon, –  rather than SL ‘pronouns’ as

such

•  also poinIng clearly interacts with other features of delivery –  e.g. gaze –  this is applicable to SLs and

SpLs in the face-‐to-‐face mode

The result are not as “unambiguous” as PeIao (1987).

Comparison of SL points and points in co-‐speech gesture

Some characterisIcs of SL points •  We see a cline of different types of points of which ‘pronominal’ points

are just one type –  however, it is ohen difficult to idenIfy points which are ‘purely’ pronominal

•  There are associaIons of forms with various funcIons/meanings (note: the references cited are simply indicaIve, many others could be cited) –  poinIng can be abstract indexical deixis, i.e. absent referents (e.g. Friedman

1975, Engberg-‐Pedersen 2003) –  there is an associaIon of palm down with locaIve meanings and contrasIve

meanings (e.g. Crasborn et al 2006, Engberg-‐Pedersen 2003, Marsaja 2008, Pfau in press, Schembri et al this conference)

–  use of flat handshape with plural or general enIIes (e.g. Johnston 1989) –  use of specific handshapes with possessives (e.g. Johnston 1989, Sandler &

Lillo-‐MarIn 2006) –  associaIon of gaze with target of point (e.g. Meier 1990, Bahan & Supalla

1995) •  But, a quesIon remains:

–  are these grammaIcalized and obligatory features of pronominal points in SLs?

•  Why? because…

CharacterisIcs of SpL gestural points

•  These ‘SL’ characterisIcs have been also idenIfied for co-‐speech gestural/deicIc/referenIal points –  abstract deixis and indexical deixis (e.g. Kendon 2004, McNeil 2000) –  associaIon of palm down with locaIve meanings and contrasIve

meanings (Kendon 2004, Kendon & Versante 2003) –  index poinIng handshape associated with parIcular individual objects

(Kendon 2004, Kendon & Versante 2003) –  flat handshape and palm up associated with general associaIon of

target of point to topic (Kendon 2004, Kendon & Versante 2003) –  the thumb handshape used because of anatomical/producIon factors

when poinIng to behind speaker or to the side, as well as implying that exact locaIon is unimportant (Kendon & Versante 2003)

–  handshapes used in gestural deixis are partly culturally determined (e.g. Wilkins 2003 “index poinIng not universal”)

–  strong associaIon of gaze with locaIve target (Enfield 2009, Kita 2003) (with or without manual poinIng or lip poinIng Enfield, 2009)

Interim conclusion •  SL PTs that ‘funcIon as pronouns’ are probably not

pronouns in any comparable cross-‐linguisIc sense –  thus the putaIve presence or absence of person marking or other expected features of pronominal systems may, ulImately, be a non-‐issue

–  i.e., we may well quesIon the usefulness or relevance of tradiIonal analyses/criIques that simply assume that SL points are pronouns, then determine what features they encode

•  However, even if assumed there are problems, such as –  arguments offered for person & number marking in SL points at best inconclusive

–  gender is not marked (potenIal excepIons Japanese SL ) –  there has been a failure to idenIfy systemaIc formal disIncIons between other types of SL points and SpL points, except perhaps possessives

Interim conclusion (cont.) •  Much larger datasets (i.e. corpora) are required for robust empirically sound language-‐internal determinaIon of the status of ‘pronominal’ points in SLs and for proper cross-‐linguisIc comparison and typologically informaIve generalizaIons – SL to SL – SLs to SpLs

Ways to address the quesIon of the status of points in SLs

•  Strategy 1 –  review the debate within the research literature on SL pronouns, as per previous slide

–  engage, conInue and contribute? •  Strategy 2

–  respond/contribute with data: corpus-‐based findings on formal and funcIonal characterisIcs of poinIng signs

–  compare with points in co-‐speech gesture •  Strategy 3

–  re-‐appraise poinIng signs as semioIc signs, within context of composite uaerances

–  recruit addiIonal corpus-‐based findings regarding sign types in face-‐to-‐face language (comparing speaking and signing)

Strategy 3

Re-‐appraise poinIng signs

•  a general modality free theory of semiogenesis in human communicaIon –  recognize bedrock of human communicaIon (language) built out of moves which are best described as composite uaerances (Enfield 2009)

•  compare like with like –  face-‐to-‐face language (SLs) need to be compared to SpLs in their face-‐to-‐face mode

Base observaIons/generalizaIons on larger datasets (i.e. corpora) which will, in turn, then require tesIng

LexicalizaIon in SLs

•  Fully lexical signs •  Partly lexical signs •  Non lexical signs

Understanding signs in SLs

Points

Some examples of other partly lexical signs (depicIng or classifier signs)

CommunicaIve/interacIonal gestures

Gestural enactments

(a)  Auslan signer recounIng an episode in “Canary Row” (Tweety & Sylvester cartoon) taken from the Auslan Corpus.

(b)  English speaker recounIng same episode in “Canary Row”, taken from McNeill (1992:9) Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Sign types in the Auslan corpus

Understanding signs* in face-‐to-‐face spoken language

•  Types of symbolic units in composite uaerances in face-‐to-‐face language –  Enfield, N. (2009) The Anatomy of Meaning: Speech, gesture, and composite uHerances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1.  convenIonal signs

2.  non-‐convenIonal signs

3.  symbolic indexical signs

*Using signs more or less as Peircean symbols, i.e. intenIonal communicaIve acts that pair a form with a meaning

Types of symbolic units 1

•  convenIonal signs –  pre-‐agreed that X stands for Y

–  have meaning by cultural fiat

•  regulariIes –  tokens are tokens of types

examples –  SL sub-‐lexical components (e.g., handshapes)

–  SpL words –  gesture emblem (e.g., okay handshape)

–  fully-‐lexical SLs signs –  tradiIonal idioms –  grammaIcal construcIons

Types of symbolic units 2 •  non-‐convenIonal signs

–  contextual symbolic unit –  contextual ‘request’ to take X to stand for Y

–  have meaning by virtue of being intended as significant and taken as significant by an interpretant

•  singulariIes –  tokens, but not tokens of types

examples •  mostly gestural, even in

SpLs (e.g., co-‐speech gesture) but can be spoken (sound iconicity) –  analogue representaIon of an object (visual or vocal)

–  mimeIc representaIon of an acIon (visual or vocal)

–  some of SL constructed acIon

•  ‘role shih’ and/or ‘role play’

ConvenIonal signs Non-‐convenIonal signs

More convenIonal Less convenIonal

SemioIc resources

Types of symbolic units 3 •  Symbolic indexical signs

–  hybrid of convenIonal and non-‐convenIonal

–  partly convenIonal –  partly contextual –  have some component

convenIonalized but also highly dependent on context for interpretaIon

•  both type and token features (e.g., of sub components)

examples •  partly convenIonal

–  handshape used in SpL poinIng gestures

–  SL possessive handshapes –  some SL enIty handshapes –  some SL SAS handshapes

•  partly contextual –  referents of SpL deicIc words

(temporal or spaIal) –  deicIc poinIng gestures (direcIon

and referent) –  SL PT signs –  SL depicIng (‘partly-‐lexical’) signs –  SL indicaIng verbs –  some SL constructed acIon

Of course! “all communicaIon/language is contextual”

“This [the exemplar model] suggests no clear divide between aspects of the meaning that are derivable from context and those that are inherent to the lexical item or construc*ons.” (Bybee 2010:52)

•  Nonetheless, contextualizaIon is gradient. Some intenIonal communicaIve acts are more convenIonalized in the specificity of form/meaning pairings than others –  Some are highly specified

(convenIonalized signs) –  Others necessarily draw on the

context of uaerance to complete meaning or meaning and form (symbolic indexicals)

–  Yet others are impromptu singulariIes with essenIally idiosyncraIc form and almost completely contextual meaning (non-‐convenIonal signs)

ConvenIonal signs

Non-‐convenIonal signs


SemioIc resources

Symbolic indexicals

Composite uaerances Conven&onal signs, non-‐conven&onal signs and symbolic indexical signs (all of which are symbolic units of one kind or another) are present in most acts of communica&on, but they are all par&cularly relevant when considering language in the way it is primarily experienced by us all—as embodied, face-‐to-‐face, and jointly constructed. Enfield (2009) argues that everyday acts of face-‐to-‐face communica&on between two or more social interactants consist of turns that are composite u+erances in the sense that as they are typically composed of conven0onal signs, symbolic indexical signs, and non-‐conven0onal signs in various propor&ons. Not only are signs of all sorts composite structures (Langacker 2008) but the usage events in which they occur are typically composite uJerances. In other words, communica&on is embodied and rooted in the context of uJerance.

Linguists wishing to establish the linguis&c status of symbolic units in SLs or the universality of features found in the symbolic units of SpLs (i.e. as also occurring in SLs) should thus compare like with like. In other words, the fundamental object of study for linguists wishing to compare SLs and SpLs should be composite uJerances and all the kinds of signs of which they are typically composed. It is only be correctly iden&fying symbolic indexicals in face-‐to-‐face spoken communica&on and face-‐to-‐face signed communica&on can we hope to make proper comparisons between language in these two modali&es.

ConvenIonal signs: tokens are tokens of types

= regulariIes Symbolic indexical signs:

hybrids of convenIonal & non-‐convenIonal; & of type and token characterisIcs

Non-‐convenIonal signs: tokens, but not tokens of types

= singulariIes


he/she/it/they/we… him/her/it/them/us…

this/that/these/those… here/there/yonder…

deicIc gestural points

iconics, beats, enactments, etc.

the tradiIonal lexicon

SemioIc resources in SpLs

Symbolic indexical signs (partly lexical signs):

hybrids of convenIonal & non-‐convenIonal; & of type and token characterisIcs

Non-‐convenIonal signs (non-‐lexical signs):

tokens, but not tokens of types = singulariIes


indicaIng verbs

possessive points

beats, regulators & other

the tradiIonal lexicon

depicIng signs: locaIon & movement

all other points

depicIng signs: size & shape

depicIng signs: handling & constructed acIon

ConvenIonal signs (fully lexical signs):

tokens are tokens of types = regulariIes

SemioIc resources in SLs

ConvenIonal signs: -‐ tokens are tokens of types = regulariIes

Symbolic indexical signs: -‐ hybrids of convenIonal & non-‐convenIonal -‐ mixture of type and token characterisIcs

SpLs

SLs

Non-‐convenIonal signs: -‐ tokens, but not tokens of

types = singulariIes

Symbolic units in SLs & SpLs

•  Two modaliIes look very different in terms of repertoire of available “off the shelf” convenIonalized construcIons, especially lexicon –  previous graphs

•  Two modaliIes look less different with respect to “language in use”, i.e. frequency of occurrence of types of symbolic units in face-‐to-‐face discourse –  following graphs

TradiIonal wriIng-‐biased view of language (spoken/wriaen languages vs signed languages)

Lexical signs 65% Other signs 65%

A completely ‘normalized’ model of SLs*

* e.g., Neidle, C., Kegl, J. A., Maclaughlin, D., Bahan, B., & Lee, R. (2000). The Syntax of American Sign Language: Func*onal Categories and Hierarchical Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

The composite uaerances of face-‐to-‐face language

[1] British National Corpus of Spoken English: see Leech, Rayson, & Wilson 2001. Note: a quantification of non-conventional manual gestures (‘metaphorics’ and ‘beats’) appears never to have been done, so this must be an underestimate. [2] Depicting signs representing the size and shape of objects or the relative location and displacement of objects of certain classes. Often referred to as ‘classifier signs’ in the SL literature. [3] Representational co-speech gestures, based on 5 gestures per 100 words (Canary Row retell) of which 10% deictics and 90% iconics (Alibali, Heath & Myers 2001)

[1]

[2, 3]

Symbolic units in SLs & SpLs

•  Two modaliIes look very different in terms of repertoire of available “off the shelf” convenIonalized construcIons, especially lexicon –  previous graphs

•  Two modaliIes look less different with respect to “language in use”, i.e. frequency of occurrence of types of symbolic units in face-‐to-‐face discourse –  previous graphs

Pre-‐conclusion: encoding, indexing and inference

•  There is an important difference between what may be inferred from units and uaerances of various sizes in a language and that which is explicitly and convenIonally coded in the lexis or morpho-‐syntax (LaPolla 2006). One should be mindful of this disIncIon when categorizing and labelling points in SLs.

•  Language (lexico-‐grammar, morpho-‐syntax, is an inference narrowing system: LaPolla.

•  Jackobson (1959): “Languages differ essenIally in what they must convey and not in what they may convey”

•  INDEX MAKE DIRTY –  She became dirty, or –  There/That place became dirty

•  I spent yesterday with my neighbour –  J’ai passé hier avec mon voisin –  J’ai passé hier avec ma voisine

•  It is moot if Auslan encodes locaIve or person informaIon in the poinIng sign, rather –  locaIve informaIon is inherent

in poinIng signs as gestural points and that person informaIon

Conclusion •  IniIal corpus data suggest SLs have no clearly idenIfiable

pronominal signs (grammaIcal class ‘pronoun’) –  previous statements/claims not well supported by corpus data –  evidence of syntacIc distribuIon awaits further corpus annotaIon

•  definiIve agreement with Evans and Levinson must therefore wait •  But poinIng exists in both SpLs and SLs and does very

similar work to pronouns in both –  primary mechanism of reference tracking in SLs –  secondary mechanism complemenIng true pronouns in SpLs –  in face-‐to-‐face mode SLs and SpLs, somewhat surprisingly, may be quite similar

•  extensive co-‐speech gesture corpora needed

Conclusion (cont.) •  SL ‘pronouns’ are examples of gestural deixis

–  however, they are symbolic indexical signs, NOT non-‐convenIonal gestures (a crude oversimplificaIon)

–  nonetheless, they are similar to gestural deixis in SpLs and SpL deicIc words (incl. pronouns) because they, too, are also symbolic indexical signs

•  Claims of evidence of grammaIcalizaIon of poinIng gestures into pronouns, demonstraIves, locaIves may be premature –  1. calquing from majority spoken languages –  2. the bleaching of co-‐text deixis of spaIal significance may be impossible and undesirable

•  Does space ulImately represent a semioIc cul-‐de-‐sac or grammaIcalizaIon garden path?

Acknowledgements

Funding sources •  Australian Research Council

–  Grant #DP1094572 awarded to Trevor Johnston (Chief InvesIgator) with Bencie Woll (Partner InvesIgator): New languages seen with new eyes: evidence for the emergence of grammar in signed languages using new methodologies and technologies (2010-‐13)

–  Grant #DP0665254 awarded to Louise de Beuzeville and Trevor Johnston: The linguis*c use of space in Auslan: seman*c roles and gramma*cal rela*ons in three dimensions (2006-‐09)

–  Grant #LP0346973 awarded to Adam Schembri and Trevor Johnston: Sociolinguis*c Varia*on in Auslan: Theore*cal and applied dimensions (2003-‐05)

•  Macquarie University –  Grant #MQSNG9200729255 awarded to Trevor

Johnston (2008-‐09): The emergence of grammar in human languages: evidence from video-‐recordings of varia*on in vocabulary and grammar in a signed language (pilot study).

•  Hans Rausing Endangered Languages DocumentaIon Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

–  Project grant #MDP0088 awarded to Trevor Johnston (2004-‐07)

Researchers/annotators •  Recent researcher associates

–  Donovan Cresdee

•  Recent/current doctoral students

–  Michael Gray, Gabrielle Hodge, Lindsay Ferrara, Lori Whynot

•  Auslan corpus researchers/annotators since 2004

–  Julia Allen, Karin Banna, Louise de Beuzeville, Michael Gray, Dani Fried, Della Goswell, Adam Schembri, Gerry Shearim

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Publishing Company.

Example of ‘excluded’ thumb poinIng

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