This article analyzes the construction of sign names in an emerging sign language from Mexico, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Data comes from elicited interviews as well as natural interactions collected by the authors and signers from two different villages, Chicán and Nohkop. Despite YMSL being an isolate language, sign name construction…

This study investigates whether there is a relation between how motion is linguistically expressed and how it is conceptualised. To do this, native speakers of two languages that differ typologically in how they encode telic motion (English and Spanish) are compared in both a verbal and a non-verbal experiment. The preferred non-verbal methods to…

Communication in international meetings represents a challenge for the participants, who need to make choices about the language(s) they use to co-construct meaning and guarantee the success of their work. In this context, plurilingual interactions may offer an invaluable opportunity for power balanced relations and intercultural flexibility. In…

This dissertation explores co-construction of a situated activity in a current unit by mainly focusing on hearers' actions. The "co-construction" involves a process of interaction in which speakers and hearers jointly construct the form and the meaning of ongoing utterances even when they disagree with each other (Jacoby & Ochs,…

Grammars of signed languages tend to be based on grammars established for written languages, particularly the written language in use in the surrounding hearing community of a sign language. Such grammars presuppose categories of discrete elements which are combined into various sorts of structures. Recent analyses of signed languages go beyond…

The way adults express manner and path components of a motion event varies across typologically different languages both in speech and cospeech gestures, showing that language specificity in event encoding influences gesture. The authors tracked when and how this multimodal cross-linguistic variation develops in children learning Turkish and…

This study investigates the interface between speech and gesture in second language (L2) narration within Slobin's (2003) thinking-for-speaking (TFS) framework as well as with respect to McNeill's (1992, 2005) growth point (GP) hypothesis. Specifically, our interest is in whether speakers shift from a first language (L1) to a L2 TFS pattern as…

Paper delivered at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England, September 20, 1972. (DD)