Abstract:

This article discusses the function of a particular feature of sign language—mouth action—as it is expressed in various discourse contexts. Specifically, we examine forms of mouthing and mouth gesture as they are used in signed narrative and expository texts, highlighting the signers' choices during the production of these two text types. We propose a new perspective on mouth action types, relying on insights from the domain of discourse analysis combined with functional categories proposed in previous studies on mouth actions in sign languages. Six deaf native signers of Israeli Sign Language (ISL) produced twelve texts, yielding a corpus of 2,125 mouth actions (1,112 in narrative texts and 1,013 in expository texts). Our study points to both quantitative and qualitative differences in the use of mouth actions in the two text types. The findings emphasize the importance of the two types of mouth actions as essential means of decoding the message, and they highlight the way mouth actions serve the text and are affected by it.

摘要：

本文讨论了手语的一个特殊特征——嘴巴动作——在各种话语语境中的作用。具体来说，我们检查了在手语记叙文和说明性文本中使用的口型和嘴型姿势的形式，突出了手语者在制作这两种文本类型时的选择。我们提出了一种关于嘴部动作类型的新观点，依赖于话语分析领域的见解，结合先前关于手语嘴部动作的研究中提出的功能类别。六位使用以色列手语 (ISL) 的聋人本土手语者制作了 12 篇文本，产生了一个包含 2,125 个口部动作的语料库（1,112 个在叙述性文本中，1,013 个在说明性文本中）。我们的研究指出了两种文本类型中嘴巴动作使用的定量和定性差异。