Turn-taking in Brazilian Sign Language

Evidence from overlap

Authors

  • Leland Emerson McCleary University of São Paulo
  • Tarcísio de Arantes Leite Federal University of Santa Catarina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v4i1.123

Keywords:

conversation, gesture, gesture phases, overlap, sign language, turn-taking

Abstract

This study investigates the interactional skills of fluent sign language users, with special attention to contexts of overlapping talk. Data from semi-spontaneous conversations were analyzed from the video record, transcribed in ELAN, with tiers for non-manual signals and with a ‘gesture phase’ analysis of manual signs. Results show that signers closely coordinate their contributions in accordance with the sequential implicativeness of gesture phases. They deploy conventional resources similar to those described for spoken languages to resolve overlap quickly and efficiently. We show that signers, like speakers of oral languages, orient to ‘one party talks at a time’, and that the management of talk-in-interaction is achieved within a tightly organized system which includes resources traditionally associated with the ‘linguistic’, ‘paralinguistic/prosodic’, and ‘kinetic/gestural’ domains, thus possibly contributing to investigations of explicitly ad hoc and multimodal forms of communication and eventually to a reevaluation of what might legitimately be termed ‘talk’.

Author Biographies

  • Leland Emerson McCleary, University of São Paulo

    Professor of English, Department of Modern Languages.

  • Tarcísio de Arantes Leite, Federal University of Santa Catarina

    Tarcísio de Arantes Leite received an MA and Ph.D. in English linguistics and literary studies from the University of São Paulo, having focused his research on Deaf education and the description of Brazilian Sign Language. Since 2008 he has been a professor of sign language linguistics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.

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Published

2013-06-20

How to Cite

McCleary, L., & de Arantes Leite, T. (2013). Turn-taking in Brazilian Sign Language: Evidence from overlap. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 4(1), 123-154. https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v4i1.123

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