Insights into interaction management through backchannels: The case of French Belgian Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language

Alysson Lepeut and Sílvia Gabarró-López
Norwegian University of Science and Technology | Pompeu Fabra University

This paper analyzes backchannel signals in two signed languages: French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) and Catalan Sign Language (LSC). While backchannels have been extensively studied in spoken languages, their documentation across signed languages remains sparse in comparison. This study investigates how backchannels operate in signed language interaction, focusing on their forms and articulatory types within and across LSFB and LSC conversations. The data comprise face-to-face video recordings of twenty-four deaf participants (twelve per language). Backchannels were identified and annotated based on prior typologies for coding multimodal backchannels in ELAN. The study offers a descriptive account of backchannel use in both languages and presents qualitative analyses of key selected examples. The findings reveal compelling commonalities in the forms of backchannels between both languages, particularly the prominent role of nonmanuals. Ultimately, these findings further support the inclusion of these interactional phenomena as essential components of language.

Publication history

Date received: 3 July 2025

Date accepted: 26 November 2025

Published online: 18 August 2026

Table of contents

The human ability for language is intrinsically interactional, deeply rooted in the dynamic and social nature of face-to-face interaction, a property that is equally fundamental to spoken and signed languages alike. Signed languages (SLs) are natural languages that exploit the visual-manual channel, using the hands, face, and body to convey meaning. Just like spoken languages (SpLs), they exhibit complex grammatical and pragmatic structures and serve as fully fledged systems for interaction management. Central to this human ability of conversation management lies the turn-taking system, a sophisticated and very robust machinery that orchestrates the management and coordination of human conversation through a well-structured set of principles (Stivers et al. 2009; Levinson and Torreira 2015).

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