Abstract
The level of integration of mouthing into the sign language system was investigated using a novel experimental procedure. We constructed a word/sign matching task in which the signer has to indicate whether a LIS (Italian Sign Language) sign matches the written Italian word that follows the video presentation of the sign. In the congruent condition, the word matches the sign, while in the incongruent condition the word matches a sign which forms a minimal pair with the sign that has been presented in the video. To form minimal pairs, all four traditional formational parameters for signs plus mouthing were considered. Lip movements were present only in mouthing minimal pairs. In the incongruent condition we compared mouthing minimal pairs separately to handshape minimal pairs, location minimal pairs, movement minimal pairs, and palm orientation minimal pairs. Accuracy was markedly lower for minimal pairs distinguished by mouthing than for minimal pairs distinguished by one of the four parameters. In the congruent condition we compared mouthing minimal pairs to all the other minimal pairs, in which lips movements were absent. Reaction times were shorter in the presence of mouthing as a consequence of the strong mapping between orthography and mouthing, confirming that mouthing is highly connected to the Italian lexicon. Participants seem to consider mouthing external to the sign to be matched with the word. We propose that cases of disambiguation by mouthing should be interpreted as cases of simultaneous code mixing. Therefore, our experimental results suggest that mouthing is not a core component of sign languages.
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Notes
Following standard practice we indicate signs by using capital letters.
Italian and LIS are two completely different languages with distinct lexicons and grammars. In particular, LIS is not to be confused with any signed version of Italian. Although fingerspelling can be occasionally used for proper names or for Italian words which do not have a corresponding LIS sign, the LIS lexicon is distinct from the Italian lexicon (Cardinaletti et al. 2011). The same applies to differences between the LIS and the Italian grammar. For example, Italian is a head initial language while LIS has been claimed to be a head-final language (Cecchetto et al. 2006) and wh-phrases are clause initial in Italian but clause final in LIS (Cecchetto et al. 2009).
In LIS, mouthing is optional (apart from the cases where it disambiguates minimal pairs like ROMA/FERRO) and the Deaf informant who recorded the video found the signs without mouthing fully natural.
We considered CoLFIS (Corpus and Frequency Lexicon of Written Italian) frequencies (Bertinetto et al. 2005).
For each pair, the semantic similarity of the Italian counterparts to the LIS signs was rated on a scale from 1 to 6 by 106 students of the University of Milan-Bicocca. Mean values were used as indicators of semantic similarity.
TRISTE (‘sad’) was paired with DELUSO (‘disappointed’). They form a minimal pair that differs only for the movement parameter. We noticed that the difference in movement is slight and this might be the reason why accuracy is so low on this item.
BIC (Bayesian Information Criterion; Schwarz 1978) is a useful index for model selection. The lower the BIC, the better the model.
Mouthing does not need to be the spell-out of the entire word. Although variability is observed, many signers mouth only a part of the word, for example the first syllable. If mouthing is code mixing, as we propose, cases of partial mouthing might be interpreted as cases of code mixing involving sub-lexical units. Alternatively, they might be interpreted as cases involving a full lexical unit (the spoken language word) which is phonologically impoverished in the signer’s representation or production. Although the debate on whether code mixing can involve sub-lexical units is very interesting (cf. Branchini and Donati, in press, for its relevance for the lexicalist hypothesis) and mouthing cases might ultimately contribute to it, the issue is not central to our purpose in this paper, so we leave it open.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Director of the Deaf Institute of Turin, Enrico Dolza, and all participants who took part in the study. We also thank Paolo Belluardo for help with data collection, Giorgio Magri, and the editor Michael Kenstowicz and two anonymous NLLT reviewers for their valuable comments. This research was supported by PRIN (Programmi di Ricerca scientifica di rilevante Interesse Nazionale) project N. 20128YAFKB (‘Theory, Experimentation, Applications: Long distance dependencies in forms of linguistic diversity’).
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Appendix 1
Appendix 1
Experimental minimal pairs organized by parameter:
Handshape | Location | Movement | Palm orientation | Mouthing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
poltrona—sedia | battito—mamma | deluso—triste | prete—ricco | Palermo—Sicilia |
armchair—chair | beat—mom | disappointed—sad | priest—rich | Palermo—Sicily |
duro—posta | occhiali—premio | educato—vestito | attento—scuola | cuore—sentimento |
hard—mail | glasses—prize | polite—dress | careful—school | heart—emotion |
bicicletta—cambiare | conoscere—parlare | mela—scusa | prova—pulito | ferro—Roma |
bike—change | know—speak | apple—sorry | attempt—clean | iron—Rome |
cattivo—fesso | gas—gratis | guerra—partita | papà—patata | accetta—asciutto |
bad—fool | gas—free | war—match | daddy—potato | accept—dry |
acqua—Italia | cane—fame | giusto—originale | Fiat—zio | fratello—uguale |
water—Italy | dog—hunger | fair—original | Fiat—uncle | brother—same |
comunicare—discutere | Francia—pollo | diverso—sfida | brutto—buono | accordo—appuntamento |
communicate—discuss | France—chicken | different—challenge | ugly—good | agreement—appointment |
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Giustolisi, B., Mereghetti, E. & Cecchetto, C. Phonological blending or code mixing? Why mouthing is not a core component of sign language grammar. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 35, 347–365 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9353-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9353-9