The use of mimetic actions by deaf signers of British Sign Language: A corpus-based study

该项目的目的是对英国手语（BSL）语料库进行二次数据分析，这是英国聋人社区手语的现有数字视频数据集-具体而言，研究BSL手语的聋人如何在他们的对话和个人叙述中再现自己，其他人，动物和事物的行为，话语，思想和感受。这些高度即兴的模仿行为在这里被称为制定法。例如，一个失聪的手语者可能会用自己小时候的动作来表达她第一次学习BSL时的惊讶和惊奇。熟练地使用聋人手语，包括BSL，对于理解他人和让自己被理解至关重要。先前对聋人手语者讲述的故事的研究表明，在讲故事的过程中，制定是表达关键情节事件不可或缺的一部分。签名者经常使用制定来详细说明他们的故事和叙述的各个方面，否则使用符号来表达。事实上，签名者往往仅仅依靠制定来显示和暗示故事中参与者和事件之间的关系。然而，在BSL的制定使用是复杂的，尚未被描述使用大量的自然话语数据，如个人叙述或聋人签名者之间的对话。我们也不太了解签名者使用制定的目的，他们何时使用它以及为什么使用它，或者在制定期间使用的符号会发生什么。由于社会因素，如签名者的年龄，他们的手语习得年龄和地理位置（影响手语使用的其他方面）可能产生的影响也是未知的。该项目的主要目的是调查在英国聋人社区内使用现有的会话和个人叙事数据在BSL语料库中的制定模式。BSL语料库由来自英国八个城市的249名BSL聋人签名者收集的视频数据组成。这些数据代表了不同的语言社区，包括男性和女性，聋人和/或听力正常的父母，年轻人和老年人的签名者，以及来自工人和中产阶级背景的个人，以及不同的种族群体。这包括聋人签名者之间的非正式对话，以及个人签名者对另一个签名者的自发叙述。这些对话和叙述涵盖了广泛的主题，由签名者自己选择，反映了他们的价值观和日常经验。主题包括聋人成长和上学的回忆，成为英国聋人社区的一部分，与家人和朋友的关系，政治，体育，艺术和文化。通过分析BSL语料库中聋人手语者在会话和叙述中如何使用制定法，我们将对制定法在BSL中的作用有更深入的了解。我们将能够描述聋人手语者在互动过程中模仿再现动作、话语、思想和感受的相似性和差异。我们将能够确定这些相似性和差异是否是由于社会因素，这些因素已被证明会影响手语使用的其他方面，例如签名者的年龄，或他们的手语习得年龄或地理区域，或者它们是否反映了更广泛和潜在的普遍模式面对面交流。这些信息将有助于正在进行的研究的语言结构和使用的BSL，以及提供一个基准的双语英语/BSL课程的聋儿，和聋人和听力成人学习BSL。这些发现对于直接比较手语者和说话者所使用的交际策略，以及进一步理解一般的面对面交流是必不可少的。

The aim of this project is to conduct secondary data analysis of the British Sign Language (BSL) Corpus, an existing digital video dataset of the signed language of the British deaf community - specifically, to study how deaf signers of BSL mimetically reproduce the actions, utterances, thoughts and feelings of themselves, other people, animals, and things in their conversations and personal narratives. These highly improvised mimetic actions are referred to here as enactments. For example, a deaf signer might produce signs (equivalents of words in spoken languages) with an enactment of herself as a young child to express the sense of surprise and wonder she experienced as she learned BSL for the first time. Proficient use of enactment in deaf signed languages, including BSL, is vital for understanding others and making oneself understood. Previous research on stories told by deaf signers has shown that enactment is integral to the expression of key plot events in storytelling. Signers often use enactment to detail aspects of their stories and narratives that are otherwise expressed using signs. Indeed, signers often rely solely on enactment to show and imply relations between participants and events in a story. However, the use of enactment in BSL is complex and has not yet been described using large amounts of natural discourse data, such as personal narratives or conversations between deaf signers. We also do not know much about what signers use enactment for, when they use it and why, or what happens to signs used during periods of enactment. The possible effects of variation due to social factors such as the signer's age, their age of signed language acquisition and geographical location (which affect other aspects of signed language use) are also unknown. The primary aim of the project is to investigate patterns in the use of enactment within the British deaf community using existing conversation and personal narrative data in the BSL Corpus. The BSL Corpus consists of video data collected from 249 deaf signers of BSL from eight cities across the United Kingdom. The data are representative of a diverse language community, including men and women, deaf adults with deaf and/or hearing parents, signers who are young and old, and individuals from working and middle class backgrounds, as well as different ethnic groups. This consists of informal conversations between pairs of deaf signers, as well as spontaneous narratives told by individual signers to another signer. These conversations and narratives cover a wide range of topics, chosen by the signers themselves and reflecting their values and everyday experiences. Topics include reminiscences of growing up deaf and attending school, being a part of the British deaf community, relationships with family and friends, politics, sport, arts and culture. By analysing how deaf signers in the BSL Corpus use enactments in their conversations and narratives, we will gain a deeper understanding of the role of enactment in BSL. We will be able to describe the similarities and differences in how deaf signers mimetically reproduce actions, utterances, thoughts and feelings during their interactions. We will be able to determine if these similarities and differences are due to social factors that have been shown to influence other aspects of signed language use, such as the signer's age, or their age of signed language acquisition or geographical region, or whether they reflect more widespread and potentially universal patterns of face-to-face communication. This information will contribute to ongoing research on linguistic structure and use of BSL, as well as providing a benchmark for deaf children in bilingual English/BSL programs, and deaf and hearing adults learning BSL. These findings are essential for directly comparing the communicative strategies used by signers with those of speakers, and furthering our understanding of face-to-face communication in general.