Attitude ascriptions in sign languages and role shift

Autor/a: QUER, Josep
Año: 2013
Editorial: Austin: Texas Linguistics Forum, 2013
Tipo de código: Copyright
Soporte: Digital

Temas

Lingüística » Lingüística de otras Lenguas de Signos

Detalles

Sign languages have been shown to share a strategy to mark reports and quotes known as role shift or role taking. The label refers to the fact that the report looks on the surface as if the signer takes on the role of the reported person, as a kind of enactment of the speech event. Role shift is often presented as some sort of direct quotation that is systematically accompanied  by  imitation  of  the  actions  by  the  reported  agent,  in  a  mimic-like  way.  In this  paper  I  discuss  several  properties  of  role  shift  that  undermine  such  a  simple  view. Research on this phenomenon in specific sign languages such as Catalan Sign Language (LSC) shows that more fine-grained distinctions must be identified in the domain of role shift,  as  it  is  used  in  a  broader  domain  of  structures  than  direct  quotation.  It  will  be argued,  on  the  one  hand,  that  different  kinds  of  role  shift  complements  must  be distinguished in  LSC,  and on  the other,  that  role  shift  is  not  restricted  to  speech  reports but it serves a more general function of marking attitude ascriptions overtly.

En: Proceedings from the 13th meeting of the Texas Linguistics Society (2012).