Using prosody and grammar to describe natural discourse in Auslan ...

Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
Using prosody and grammar to
describe natural discourse in Auslan
Gabrielle Hodge, Lindsay Ferrara, Trevor Johnston
Centre for Language Sciences, Department of Linguistics,
Macquarie University, Sydney
February 23, 2011
33 rd Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS)
Georg August University, Göttingen, 23-25 February, 2011
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Research Aim:
1) Use the Auslan Corpus to investigate the
natural unit of cognitive processing (the
Intonation Unit) and a possible frequent unit
of grammatical structure (the Clause) in a SL
2) Examine the relationship between two units
for what it tells us about Auslan grammar
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
We will discuss:
I. Data set—text types and participants
II. Aim 1—our current understanding of the signed
Intonation Unit and the signed Clause unit
III. Aim 2—frequent alignment of these units in
natural Auslan discourse
IV. Findings—major implications of this study
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I. Auslan Data
• Data comes from
the Auslan Corpus
and PhD research
by one of the
authors
• Three text types
were targeted:
spontaneous and
stimulated narrative,
and conversation
• Data set consists of
20 minutes of
signing by 18 deaf
native signers
• Video clips were
annotated in ELAN
using a modified
version of the
Auslan Corpus
template
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
II. Aim 1—How did we investigate what
constitutes an IU and Clause in a
SL?
1) We annotated IUs using a perceptual approach
(Chafe 1994; Croft 1995; Matsumoto 2000; Park 2002)
2) We annotated candidates for Clause units using a
semantic approach to identify elements that function
as predicate(s) and argument(s). As we annotated
only possible Clause units, we currently refer to
them as ‘Clause-Like Units’ (CLU)
(Van Valin 2005; Johnston & Schembri 2006)
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What is a signed/spoken Intonation
Unit (IU)?
A perceptual unit of cognitive processing
that indicates shifts in active ideas, and
that is the right size to be processed in
its entirety
(Chafe 1979, 1987, 1988, 1994; Croft 1995, 2007;
Matsumoto 2000; Park 2002; Wouk 2008)
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
1. Sequence of elements combined under
a single, coherent intonation contour
SpL
Changes in:
• Pitch
• Duration
• Intensity
• Pausing
• Voice quality
NO ABSOLUTE VALUES
figure vs. ground
SL
Changes in:
• Duration (> 2 sec)
• Eye gaze pattern
• Head/torso momentum
• Tensity of hands
• Sign holds (> .3 sec)
• Pausing (>.3 sec)
• Head tilt + eye closure
• Body ‘re-set’ (return to
‘neutral’ position)
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2. Interactional discourse moves of
participants
SpL
• Changes of turn
• Interruptions, e.g. but,
yeah, hey
• Back-channeling, e.g.
uhuh, hmm, giving good
‘face’
SL
• Changes of turn
• Interruptions, attentiongrabbing
gestures, e.g.
hey, umm, well
• Back-channeling, e.g.
nodding, giving good
‘face’
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
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What is a signed CLU?
SpL (Van Valin 2005)
o A Clause is a languagespecific
grammatical
construction containing a
universal semantic
structure
o Semantically identified:
1) Predicating elements
2) Argument(s) of predicate
3) Adjunct modifiers of P
and A
SL
o A Clause-Like Unit is a
possible languagespecific
grammatical
construction containing a
universal semantic
structure
o Semantically identified:
1) Predicating elements
2) Argument(s) of predicate
3) Adjunct modifiers of P
and A
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
CLUs in Auslan
We frequently observed:
1. Partly or fully lexical manual signs may
function as predicate(s) and argument(s),
e.g. [PT+DS] constructions
2. Manual gestural elements may function as
predicating elements, e.g. [PT+G]
constructions
3. Non-manual elements may function as
predicating elements and arguments, e.g.
[CA] constructions
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Preliminary Results of Annotation
Tokens of
Substantive Units
Substantive IUs 907
CLUs 923
IU-CLU Alignments 732
NB: Please note that we expect to revise all annotations—
Final results will be presented in out paper
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
III. Aim 2—What are the relationships
between IUs and CLUs in Auslan?
One IU
Multiple IUs
One CLU Type I Type III
Multiple CLUs Type II Type IV
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Type I: Alignment of one IU to one CLU
Represents 70.36% of all alignments
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
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Type II: Alignment of one IU to multiple
CLUs
Represents 17.35% of all alignments—
strong preference for one IU
to align with two CLUs
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
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Type III: Alignment of multiple IUs to
one CLU
Represents 9.97% of all alignments—
strong preference for two IUs
to align with one CLU
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
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Aim I:
o
IV. What does it all mean?
Signed IUs—IUs in Auslan are perceived by
prosodic contours and interactional discourse
moves, and not by discrete prosodic markers
interpreted as boundary markers
o
Signed CLUs—the relationship between predicate(s)
and their argument(s) can be identified using a
semantic approach, but we do not yet know the
linguistic status of the forms of these elements
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
Aim 2:
IV. What does it all mean?
o IUs most frequently align with CLUs (cf. Type I: 70%)
o Prosody and grammar are tightly entwined in Auslan,
it is necessary to look at contours NOT boundaries
or we will miss layers of cohesiveness (cf. all CLU
Types)
o It’s possible Auslan uses prosody to express
relationships between CLUs (cf. Type II: 17%) or
between CLUs and other types of grammatical
constituents (cf. Type III: 10%). These relationships
may be represented by morphosyntactic markers in
non-signed (older? spoken? written?) languages
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Thank you!
QUESTIONS?
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Hodge, Ferrara & Johnston: DGfS 2011 3/3/11
Acknowledgements – some corpus
material from
ARC Discovery Project #DP0665254
“Use of space in Auslan” &
Linkage Project #LP0882270
“Medical Signbank”
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Selected References
Chafe, W. (1979). The flow of thought and the flow of language. In T. Givón (Ed.), Discourse and Syntax (pp.
159-181). New York: Academic Press.
Chafe, W. (1987). Cognitive constraints on information flow. In R. S. Tomlin (Ed.), Coherence and Grounding in
Discourse (pp. 21-51). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Chafe, W. (1988). Linking intonation units in spoken English. In J. Haiman & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Clause
Combining in Grammar and Discourse (pp. 1-28). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Chafe, W. (1994). Discourse, Consciousness and Time: The flow and displacement of conscious experience in
speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Croft, W. (1995). Intonation units and grammatical structure. Linguistics, 33, 839-882.
Croft, W. (2007). Intonation units and grammatical structure in Wardaman and in cross-linguistic perspective.
Australian Journal of Linguistics, 27(1), 1-39.
Haspelmath, M. (2007). Pre-established categories don't exist: consequences for language description and
typology. Linguistic Typology, 11(1), 119-132.
Johnston, T., & Schembri, A. (2006). Identifying clauses in signed languages: applying a functional approach.
Paper presented at the DGfS [Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft] workshop How to recognise
a sentence when you see one: methodological and linguistic issues in the creation of sign language
corpora, 23-24 February, Bielefeld, Germany.
Langacker, R. W. (2010). How not to disagree: The emergence of structure from usage. In K. Boye & E.
Engberg-Pedersen (Eds.), Language Usage and Language Structure. Berlin/NY: De Gruyter Mouton.
Matsumoto, K. (2000). Intonation units, clauses and preferred argument structure in conversational Japanese.
Language Sciences, 22, 63-86.
Park, J. S. (2002). Cognitive and interactional motivations for the intonation unit. Studies in Language, 26(3),
637-680.
Van Valin, R. D. (2005). Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wouk, F. (2008). The syntax of intonation units in Sasak. Studies in Language, 32(1), 137-162.
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