Where Language Lives and Breathes: A Special Issue Featuring Signed Language Interaction
Temas
Detalles
This special issue of Sign Language Studies spotlights where language lives and breathes—in the body during face-to-face interaction. Though we do not often think of it in this way, language emerges from the body, extending across two (or more) individuals (Stivers 2021) during a sheer diversity of daily communicative events and contexts. While written language renders the body invisible, most interactions, including those that transpire through tactile and kinesthetic channels (Mesch and Raanes 2023), require close monitoring of the other's body for cues that permit discourse to unfold (Goodwin 1981). Because there is no written form to transcribe them, signed language (henceforth, SL) interactions, in particular, force the analyst to contend with all aspects of the embodied-ness of face-to-face communication (see Streeck, Goodwin, and LeBaron 2011). It is this aspect of interaction that is explored in this series of articles.