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Article published In:
Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 26:2 (2023) ► pp.218–257

Variation of sign parameters in narrative and expository discourse

A view from Israeli Sign Language

| University of Haifa
| University of Haifa
| University of Haifa
The paper presents an in-depth study of variation in sign parameters of Israeli Sign Language (ISL). We describe and analyze specific sign parameters and their sub-parameters: handshape, orientation, place of articulation, and movement, as they are distributed in two text-types: narrative and expository discourse. A group of 16 deaf native ISL signers produced 32 texts containing a total of 6,875 signs which were then analyzed from a bottom-up approach. A sub-set of 3,919 signs out of this large database (excluding signs that are inherently variable) were found eligible for the detailed distributional analysis of text-dependent variation in terms of their articulation structure, and were used for comparison between the narrative and expository productions. Our findings show that narratives attract more variation in the sign parameters compared to expository texts. The study thus highlights the impact of communicative context on the use of signs.
Keywords: Israeli Sign Language, variation, sign parameters, discourse, narrative, expository
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Sign parameters and their variation
    • 1.2Inter-textual variation in spoken and signed discourse
  • 2.Methodology and data description
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Design
    • 2.3Procedure
    • 2.4Transcribing the data
    • 2.5Categories of analysis
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1General distributions
    • 3.2Variation according to the four sign parameters
      • 3.2.1Handshape (HS) and orientation (ORN)
      • 3.2.2Place of articulation (POA)
      • 3.2.3Movement (MOV)
      • 3.2.4Combinations of changes in the sign parameters
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.22001.coh
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