Towards understanding nonmanuality : A semiotic treatment of signers’ head movements
Abstract
This article discusses a certain type of nonmanual action, signers’ head movements, from a
semiotic perspective. It presents a typology of head movements and their iconic, indexical and
symbolic features based on Peircean and post-Peircean semiotics. The paper argues for the
view that (i) indexical strategies are very prominent in head movements, (ii) iconic features are
most evident in enacting, while non-enacting description is less common, (iii) symbolic types for
tokens are infrequent, although some movements—such as nodding and shaking the head—may
become more conventional or schematized, and (iv) different types of head movements involve
different proportions of iconicity, indexicality and symbolicity as well as different degrees of
control in their production and interpretation. The treatment of head movements is extended to
a discussion of semiotic versatility in the signification of actions of a signer’s body, as well as to
the treatment of nonmanuals in the theoretical description of sign languages. Finally, the paper
presents a perspective on nonmanuals in which different nonmanual cues are examples of how
signification, and human cognition in general, are closely connected to the embodied experience
of existing and navigating in the physical and social world around us.
Main Author
Format
Articles
Research article
Published
2019
Series
Subjects
Publication in research information system
Publisher
Ubiquity Press Ltd.
The permanent address of the publication
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201903201925Use this for linking
Review status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2397-1835
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.709
Language
English
Published in
Glossa
Citation
- Puupponen, A. (2019). Towards understanding nonmanuality : A semiotic treatment of signers’ head movements. Glossa, 4(1), Article 39. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.709
Copyright© 2019 The Author.