Better letter: iconicity in the manual alphabets of American Sign Language and Swedish Sign Language

IF 1.1 3区 心理学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
Carl Börstell
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

While iconicity has sometimes been defined as meaning transparency, it is better defined as a subjective phenomenon bound to an individual’s perception and influenced by their previous language experience. In this article, I investigate the subjective nature of iconicity through an experiment in which 72 deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing (signing and non-signing) participants rate the iconicity of individual letters of the American Sign Language (ASL) and Swedish Sign Language (STS) manual alphabets. It is shown that L1 signers of ASL and STS rate their own (L1) manual alphabet as more iconic than the foreign one. Hearing L2 signers of ASL and STS exhibit the same pattern as L1 signers, showing an iconic preference for their own (L2) manual alphabet. In comparison, hearing non-signers show no general iconic preference for either manual alphabet. Across all groups, some letters are consistently rated as more iconic in one sign language than the other, illustrating general iconic preferences. Overall, the results align with earlier findings from sign language linguistics that point to language experience affecting iconicity ratings and that one’s own signs are rated as more iconic than foreign signs with the same meaning, even if similar iconic mappings are used.
更好的字母:美国手语和瑞典手语手动字母的图标性
虽然图标性有时被定义为意义透明度,但它更适合被定义为一种主观现象,与个人的感知息息相关,并受其以往语言经验的影响。在本文中,我通过一项实验研究了标志性的主观性质,在该实验中,72 名聋人、重听人和听力正常人(手语和非手语)参与者对美国手语(ASL)和瑞典手语(STS)手写字母表中单个字母的标志性进行了评分。结果表明,ASL 和 STS 的第一手语手语者认为他们自己(第一手语)的手动字母表比外来字母表更具标志性。听力正常的 ASL 和 STS L2 手语手语者表现出与 L1 手语者相同的模式,对自己的(L2)手动字母表表现出标志性偏好。相比之下,非手语听力障碍者对任何一个手语字母表都没有普遍的图标偏好。在所有组别中,有些字母在一种手语中始终比在另一种手语中更具标志性,这说明了一般的标志性偏好。总体而言,这些结果与手语语言学的早期研究结果一致,即语言经验会影响图标性评分,即使使用了相似的图标映射,自己的手语比具有相同含义的外来手语更具图标性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
4.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
34
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