Pointing and Self-reference in French and French Sign Language

• Authors: Aliyah Morgenstern , Stéphanie Caët , Fanny Limousin
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory study and compare the development of pointing and its specific use as self-reference in French sign language (LSF) with the development of pointing and self reference in French. Personal reference is expressed through nominal expressions and pronouns in French. In LSF, the signs used for personal reference have the same form as pointing gestures, which are present in children’s communication system from the age of 10-11 months (Bates et. al 1977, Clark 1978). Continuity between pointing gestures and signs is questioned by Bellugi & Klima (1981) and Petitto (1986), who indicate that signing children’s pre-linguistic pointing gestures are different from signs and correspond to two distinct categories: indexical and symbolic. We present arguments for a continuity hypothesis between pointing gestures and signs. We coded two longitudinal datasets of a French-speaking child and a French Sign Language signing child aged seven months to three years, filmed at home with their mothers once a month. Our analyses enabled us to underline the continuity between the deaf child’s pointing gestures and their incorporation as markers of personal reference into the child’s sign language system.

Keywords

EN

pointing; self-reference; first language acquisition; sign language acquisition

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Open Linguistics
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 1

Dates

received

2015-02-01

accepted

2015-10-09

online

2016-02-22

Contributors

author

Aliyah Morgenstern

• Sorbonne Nouvelle University, 75006 Paris, France

author

Stéphanie Caët

• Lille University, 59120 Loos, France

author

Fanny Limousin

• Georgetown University, 20057 Washington D.C., United States

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/opli-2016-0003