Storytelling and Conversation

by Winston, Elizabeth A.

• ISBN13: 9781563680816
• ISBN10: 1563680815
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-04
• Publisher: Gallaudet Univ Pr

Summary

In this intriguing book, renowned sociolinguistics experts explore the importance of discourse analysis, a process that examines patterns of language to understand how users build cooperative understanding in dialogues. It presents discourse analyses of sign languages native to Bali, Italy, England, and the United States.

Studies of internal context review the use of space in American Sign Language (ASL) to discuss space, how space in British Sign Language (BSL) is used to "package" complex narrative tasks, how signers choose linguistic tools to structure storytelling, and how affect, emphasis, and comment are added in text telephone conversations. Inquiries into external contexts observe the integration of deaf people and sign language into language communities in Bali, and the language mixing that occurs between deaf parents and their hearing children.

Both external and internal contexts are viewed together, first in an examination of applying internal ASL text styles to teaching written English to Deaf students and then in a consideration of the language

Table of Contents

Editorial Advisory Board	vii
Contributors	viii
Editor's Introduction	ix
PART ONE: INTERNAL CONTEXT
Talking about Space with Space: Describing Environments in ASL	3	(24)
Karen Emmorey
Brenda Falgier
Event Packaging in British Sign Language Discourse	27	(32)
Gary Morgan
Storytelling in the Visual Mode: A Comparison of ASL and English	59	(24)
Jennifer Rayman
Affect, Emphasis, and Comment in Text Telephone Conversations	83	(26)
Meryl Glaser
PART TWO: EXTERNAL CONTEXT
Sign Languages as a Natural Part of the Linguistic Mosaic: The Impact of Deaf People on Discourse Forms in North Bali, Indonesia	109	(40)
Jan Branson
Don Miller
I Gede Marsaja
Italian Sign Language and Spoken Italian in Contact: An Analysis of Interactions between Deaf Parents and Hearing Children	149	(13)
Sabina Fontana
GET-TO-THE-POINT: Academic Bilingualism and Discourse in American Sign Language and Written English	162	(28)
Karen Christie
Dorothy M. Wilkins
Betsy Hicks McDonald
Cindy Neuroth-Gimbrone
Footing Shifts in an Interpreted Mock Interview	190	(29)
Melanie Metzger
Index	219