MULTIMODAL LINGUISTICS: Directions of research Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, RAN)...

MULTIMODAL LINGUISTICS:

Directions of research

Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, RAN)

[email protected]

CML-2008Montenegro, September

2008

mailto:[email protected]

2

The mainstream linguistic approach

Language consists of hierarchically organized segmental units, such as phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences

Linguistic form is thus equated with verbal form Search for “linguistic form” in Google:

The first result is: “A meaningful unit of language, such as an affix, a word,

a phrase, or a sentence.” (TheFreeDictionary.com) «В своей совокупности языковые знаки

образуют особого рода знаковую систему – язык. <…> Наиболее типичным языковым знаком является слово <…> Форма выражения любого словесного знака состоит из фонем» (Лингвистический энциклопедический словарь, с. 167)

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In related disciplines

Assumption typically held by other cognitive scientists, for example psychologists: language consists of words, sentences, and other verbal units

“With no more than 50 to 100 K words humans can create and understand an infinite number of sentences” (Bernstein et al. 1994: 349-350)

When psychologists and neuroscientists work with “language”, they almost invariably think that language is a set of individual words or, at most, sentences

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However

There are prosodic, that is non-verbal aspects to sound Imagine prosody-free talk or, vice versa, talk behind a wall

Apart from sound, there are other channels of communication, in the first place through vision (body language, gesture, gaze, etc.)

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Multimodality

In order to understand language and communication, all aspects of linguistic form shold be taken into account

This is what is sometimes called the multimodal approach Modality, or mode, refers to a distinct type of input In particular, modality is a kind of stimulus associated

with one the human senses, particularly hearing and sight

So the verbal component, prosody, and body language all count as modes or modalities

Hence the notion of multimodality

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Goals of this talk

Emphasize the importance of prosody and visual aspects of communication in linguistic research

Show how prosody and visual communication interact with the verbal component, thus suggesting not only the multimodal, but also the cross-modal approach

Propose that linguistics cannot progress without seriously taking multimodality into account

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Are these goals relevant and important?

After all, linguists and other scholars have already been pursuing these issues for many decades, and the respective research traditions are quite rich

But: First, prosody and visual communication are

marginalized in linguistics, they are located in certain “pockets” of the overall linguistic panorama and are tolerated by the mainstream as “paralinguistics”

Those focusing on these information channels often treat them as a “thing in itself”, without integration with the verbal component

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Plan of talk

I. Prosody Sentence

II. Gestures Reference

III. Relative contribution of three information channels

IV. Signed languages Reference

V. Wider context

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I. PROSODY Prosodic components

pausing accents pitch tempo (of various scope) registers degrees of reduction glottal features loudness ................

Prosody is responsible for discourse segmentation into Elementary Discourse Units (EDUs), identified on the basis of several prosodic components and strongly correlated with clauses

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An example of prosodically oriented discourse transcription

....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,Lake some

..(0.3) (Или /\речка,Either river

или /\озеро,or lake

но по-моему \озеро,but I guess lake

потому что’ ..(0.2) как-то-оw because somehow...(0.6) \маленькое такое,

small such \небольшое.)

minor ....(1.0) ’и-иh ...(0.7)через /него

and across it..(0.3) как-то \бревно какое-то,

somehow log some типа \моста.

like bridge

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka,

ili /\ozero,

no po-moemu \ozero,

potomu čto’ ..(0.2) kak-to-oW ...

(0.6) \malen’koe takoe,

\nebol’šoe.)

....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego ..

(0.3) kak-to \brevno kakoe-to,

tipa \mosta.

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Night Dream Stories

Corpus of spoken Russian stories Speakers: children and adolescents Subject matter: retelling of night

dreamsDiscourse type: monologic narrative

(personal stories) Joint study with Vera Podlesskaya and

a group of our graduate students

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Segmentation (lines) ....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,

Lake some ..(0.3) (Или /\речка,

Either river или /\озеро,

or lake но по-моему \озеро,

but I guess lake потому что’ ..(0.2) как-то-оw

because somehow...(0.6) \маленькое такое,





like bridge

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka,

ili /\ozero,

no po-moemu \ozero,



\nebol’šoe.)

....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego ..


tipa \mosta.

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Pauses ....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,










like bridge

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka,

ili /\ozero,

no po-moemu \ozero,



\nebol’šoe.)

....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego ..


tipa \mosta.

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Pitch accents ....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,










like bridge

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka,

ili /\ozero,

no po-moemu \ozero,



\nebol’šoe.)

....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego ..


tipa \mosta.

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Tempo: wide and narrow scope ....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,










like bridge

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka,

ili /\ozero,

no po-moemu \ozero,



\nebol’šoe.)

....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego ..


tipa \mosta.

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Other prosodic phenomena ....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,










like bridge

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka,

ili /\ozero,

no po-moemu \ozero,



\nebol’šoe.)

....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego ..


tipa \mosta.

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Prosody and sentence

Does spoken language consist of sentences? Sheer facts:

Spoken language is the primary form of language Spoken language does not contain periods,

question marks and other explicit signals of sentence boundaries

Research question: Is sentence, as a theoretical construct, as

identifiable and as basic for the primary form of language as it is (or as it is thought to be) for written language?

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Transitional continuity

Term by J. DuBois et al. 1992 Alternative term by Sandro V. Kodzasov:

phase Discourse semantic category: ‘end’ vs.

‘non-end’ (=expectation of a forthcoming end)

End of tentative sentence – falling tonal accent

Non-end – rising tonal accent

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A canonical example of the transitional continuity distinction z57:15-16

..(0.4) /\Мы-ы’ ..(0.4) \как бы за них /взя-ались,..(0.4) /\My-y’ ..(0.4) \kak by za nix /vzja-alis’,

We sort of at them got.hold

...(0.5) и-и ввь= || ..(0.2) полетели \вве-ерх. ...(0.5) i-i vv’= || ..(0.2) poleteli \vve-erx. and flew upward

Rising (“comma”)Non-end

Falling (“period”)End

If things were that easy, sentence would be uncontroversial

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Uncanonical situation: Non-end with a falling tonal accent

....(1.5) /\Озеро ...(0.5) какое-то,

..(0.3) (Или /\речка,

или /\озеро,

но по-моему \озеро,

потому что’ ..(0.2) как-то-оw

...(0.6) \маленькое такое,

\небольшое.)

....(1.0) ’и-иh ...(0.7)через /него

..(0.3) как-то \бревно какое-то,

типа \моста.

....(1.5) /\Ozero ...(0.5) kakoe-to,Lake some

..(0.3) (Ili /\rečka, Either river

ili /\ozero,or lake

no po-moemu \ozero,but I guess lake

potomu čto’ ..(0.2) kak-to-oWbecause somehow ...(0.6) \malen’koe takoe,

small such \nebol’šoe.)

minor ....(1.0) ’i-iH ...(0.7) čerez /nego

and across it ..(0.3) kak-to \brevno kakoe-to,

somehow log some tipa \mosta.

like bridge

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The problem of two kinds of falling

The existence of non-final falling calls relevance of sentence into question

However, the distinction between two kinds of falling is very systematic

The two kinds of falling: are prosodically distinct have distinct discourse functions

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Prosodic criteria of the final vs. non-final falling distinction

1. Target frequency band2. Post-accent behavior3. Pausing pattern4. Reset vs. latching5. Steepness of falling6. Interval of falling

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Target frequency band

Final falling (“period”): targets at the bottom of the speaker’s F0 range

Non-final falling (“faling comma”): targets at level several dozen Hz (several semitones) higher

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F0 graph for the “lake” example

\ozero, \malen’koe \nebol’ \brevno kakoe \mosta.

takoe, šoe.-to,

12 10 125

8

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Representation of EDU continuity types in corpus

894

606

1188

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Finalfalling

Non-finalfalling

(Non-final)rising

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The status of sentence

In the speech of most speakers final falling is clearly distinct from non-final patterns

Final intonation, expressly distinct from non-final intonation (both rising and falling), makes the notion of sentence valid for spoken discourse

Speakers “know” when they complete a sentence and when they do not

Apparently, spoken sentences are the prototype of written sentences

However, identification of sentences is possible only on the basis of a complex analytic procedure

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Conclusions on prosody and sentence

Sentence is an intermediate hierarchical grouping between a whole discourse and an EDU (roughly, clause)

Sentence is a complex, non-elementary unit of spoken language

These conclusions, possible only due to prosodic analysis, are of prime importance for linguistic theory

The notion of sentence, so salient in theories restricted to the verbal component alone, can only be evaluated relying on prosodic evidence

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II. GESTURE

In the course of linguistic communication, it is not just that the speaker speaks and the addressee listens

In addition, the speaker displays, and the addressee observes Gesture Gaze Mimics Posture Proxemics Cultural symbolism .....................(see, for example, Крейдлин 2002, Бутовская

2004)

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Gestures

Gestures are kinetic behaviors of arms and other limbs, capable of conveying meaning from speaker to addressee.

Among the various types of gestures (see e.g. McNeill 1992) pointing gestures are one of the most salient types.

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Pointing

Возьмите игрушки там!

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Elements of a canonical pointing act

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Phylogeny and ontogeny

Appear an exclusive property of humans (Tomasello et al. 2007)

Are a very ancient gesture type (Крейдлин 2007)

Appear at the end of the first year Can participate in binary multimodal

constructions “word + gesture”, such as open POINT (Butcher and Goldin-Meadow 2000)

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Reference and pointing

Reference is a fundamental linguistic phenomenon, accounting for about every third word in running discourse

Studies of reference (deixis, anaphora, etc.) are among the central concerns of modern linguistics

Pointing is the developmental source of reference

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Pointing, deixis, and exophora

Deixis is the most widely recognized function of pointing

However, quite frequently pointing is associated with exophora, that is mention of perceptually activated referents (O'Neill 1996, Levy 2000: 219, Nikolaeva 2003 )

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Exophoric reference (from Nikolaeva 2003)

a. My s Anatoliem uže mnogolet očen’ rabotaem,

<three intervening clauses>

e. on mnogo raz zavjazyval,

‘Anatolij and I have been working together for many years, <…> he was winding it up (drinking) many times’

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Anaphora

Anaphora (reference to items activated by prior discourse) is secondary to exophora (reference to items activated by perceptual availability)

Exophora is the ontological source of anaphora

Anaphora occasionally occurs with pointing

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Pointing and prosody

Pointing and accentuation are analogous phenomena, both associated with making an item salient

Levy (2000): energy expenditureNikolaeva (p.c.): pointing invariably

cooccurs with accent

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Substitution: Referent vs. demonstratum

Reference to non-specific items:

Vot počemu my i obraščaemsja poroj k psixologam.

‘This is why we address psychologists now and then’

This phenomenon is known as deferred ostension, analogic deixis, ostensive metonymy, etc.

In substitution, reference does not have to be non-specific

He got a big scar here (pointing to one’s cheek) (Levelt 1989)

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Virtual pointing

Pointing to imaginary targets cf. Buehler’s Deixis am Phantasma,

McNeill’s abstract pointing

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Frequency in two discourse types

Nikolaeva 2003 (TV shows): 5.4 poinring gestures per 100 EDUs 2.7 are virtual pointing

Nikolaeva p.c. 2007 (retelling of a film): 4.2 pointing gestures per 100 EDUs All are virtual pointing

Pointing in exophora/anaphora is as frequent as in deixis

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a. … əə Kogda on exal po= podoroge,

b. on əə mm … poravnjalsja s devočkoj,

‘As he rode along the road, he passed a girl <...>’

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d. on zasmotrelsja na neë,

‘he gaped at her’

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Establishment of spatial relations

By illustrative gestures, as in the previous example By verbal devicesa. i naprotiv menja sideli dve devočki-mulatki, <21 intervening clauses>y. vot êti dve devočki naprotiv i ja,‘‘And across from me sat two brown-skinned girls, <…

> these two girls and I <...>’ There is no difference for the referential system

what was used to establish spatial relations Verbal and gestural material is jointly used to

convey the inner cognitive representation from the speaker to the addressee

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Conclusions on pointing and reference

The pointing gesture is the developmental source of reference

The use of pointing is intimately connected to reference

Reference, a central linguistic phenomenon, cannot be understood if we fail to take gesture into account

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III. Relative contribution of three information channels

Discourse

Vocal channels Visual channel

Verbal channel Prosodic channel

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What is the contribution of different channels?

Traditional approach of mainstream linguistics: the verbal channel is so central that prosody and the visual channel are at best downgraded as “paralinguistics”

Applied psychology It is often stated that (figures go back to Mehrabian

1971):• body language conveys 55% of information• prosody conveys 38% of information• the verbal component conveys 7% of information

«Words may be what men use when all else fails» (Крейдлин 2002: 6)

Who is right?

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Experimental study

Isolate three information channels Present a sample discourse in all

possible variants (23=8) Present each of the eight variants to

a group of subjectsAssess the degree of understanding

in each case El’bert 2007, Kibrik and El’bert 2008

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Experimental material

Russian TV serial “Tajny sledstvija” – “Mysteries of the investigation”

Experimental excerpt: 3 min. 20 sec. Preceded by a 8 minutes context (that starts from the

beginning of the series) The excerpt fully consists of a conversation, to ensure that

we are testing the understanding of discourse rather than of the film in general

Two vocal channels have been separated: verbal alone – running subtitles prosodic alone – superimposed filter creating the “behind a

wall” effect Subjects:

99 participants, divided into 8 groups Native speakers of Russian Each group comprised 10 to 17 subjects

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Full version

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Visual + verbal channels

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Visual + prosodic channels

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Procedure

Every subject was instructed to watch the context and the experimental excerpt and then answer a set of questions concerned with the experimental excerpt alone

Questionnaire was constructed in accordance with the received principles of test tasks (Panchenko 2000)

23 questions in questionnaire A subject was supposed to choose only one answer out of

four listed variants What Tamara Stepanovna offers Masha before the

beginning of the conversation: a. to take off her coat b. to have a cup of tea c. to have a seat d. to have a drink

Percentage of correct answers is used as an assessment of a subject’s degree of understanding

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Results

Group number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Experimen-tal material

Original

Sound Subtitles+ video

Prosody+ video

Subtitles

Prosody Video Nothing(context only)

Information channels

verbal prosodic visual

verbal prosodic

verbal visual

prosodic visual

verbal prosodic

visual [none]

Number of information channels

3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0

Mean %% of correct answers

87,4% 70,4% 73,9% 51,2% 72,0% 51,1% 61,7% 38,3%

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Each of the three information channels, taken in isolation, is quite informative

Group number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8


Original


Prosody+ video

Subtitles




verbal prosodic

verbal visual

prosodic visual

verbal prosodic

visual [none]


3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0


87,4% 70,4% 73,9% 51,2% 72,0% 51,1% 61,7% 38,3%

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The hierarchy of informativeness: verbal > visual > prosodic

Group number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8


Original


Prosody+ video

Subtitles




verbal prosodic

verbal visual

prosodic visual

verbal prosodic

visual [none]


3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0


87,4% 70,4% 73,9% 51,2% 72,0% 51,1% 61,7% 38,3%

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Combining the verbal channel with one additional channel does not increase the percentage of correct answers

Group number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8


Original


Prosody+ video

Subtitles




verbal prosodic

verbal visual

prosodic visual

verbal prosodic

visual [none]


3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0


87,4% 70,4% 73,9% 51,2% 72,0% 51,1% 61,7% 38,3%

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The combination ‘prosodic plus visual’ (group 4) leads to significantly lower result than in other pairs of channels (groups 2 and 3).

Group number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8


Original


Prosody+ video

Subtitles




verbal prosodic

verbal visual

prosodic visual

verbal prosodic

visual [none]


3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0


87,4% 70,4% 73,9% 51,2% 72,0% 51,1% 61,7% 38,3%

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Relative contribution of the three channels

For the sake of simplicity, assume that all three channels are independent

(72+51+62=185)/100Results:

Verbal channel 39% (72:1.85≈39), Prosodic channel 28% (51,1:1.85≈28), Visual channel 33% (61,7:1.85≈33),

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Conclusions about the relative weight of three information channels

All information channels are highly significant the traditional linguistic viewpoint is

erroneous

The verbal channel is the leading one the viewpoint popular in applied psychology

is erroneous

Information from the prosodic and the visual channels is primarily used through integration with the verbal channel, at least for this discourse type

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IV. Signed languagesNATURAL LANGUAGES

SPOKEN SIGNED

DEAF SIGN LANGUAGES

natural, full-fledged human languages visual-spatial languages

use hands and arms, facial expressions, eye gaze, head and body posture to encode linguistic information

manual signs are produced in a three-dimensional space immediately in front of the signer – the signing arena

121 sign languages (http//:www.ethnologue.com)American Sign Language, Russian Sign Language …

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Reference in RSL

Prozorova 2006, Kibrik and Prozorova 2007

Goal: to characterize referential choice of a deaf sign language as contrasted to that of spoken languages

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RSL data collection

‘The Pear Stories’ Film (Chafe 1980) Corpus of 10 video-recorded RSL narratives

based on the retellings of the Pear Film Speakers:

6 men and 4 women age 15-55 all based in Moscow

7 animate referents in the Pear Film 657 clauses 542 referential expressions (animate)

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Deictic demonstrative reference in RSL

operates in the perceived space P

deictic expressions: pointing signs pointing with an index

finger towards the intended referent

(2) DEMcat ILL ‘He is ill’

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Major anaphoric options in RSL

Full NPs (114)Zero expressions (401)Demonstratives (27)

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Full NP

BOY YOUNG AGE CYCLE ‘A young boy is riding a bicycle’

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Full NP

BOY YOUNG AGE CYCLE ‘A young boy is riding a bicycle’

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Zeroexpressions

1. BOY YOUNG AGE CYCLE2. Øboy STOP

3. Øboy HUMAN-STANDrightdown

4. Øboy LOOKrightdown P-E-A-R

1. A young boy is riding a bicycle.2. He stops.3. He stands upright.4. He sees the pears.

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Anaphoric zero reference

Interlocutors’ shared cognitive representation contains not only perceived referents, but also referents conceived of (remembered or imagined)

We call this representation the conceived space C

Mentioning referents that are present, or activated, in the conceived space is what is known as anaphora

Anaphoric referential choice depends on a referent’s activation in the conceived space: High zero Low full NP

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Demonstrative

1. Øboy CYCLE

2. Øboy GOsignerforward AWAYsignerforward

3. DEMmanright

SEE NEG

4. Øman PICK-ROUND

1. He cycles.2. He goes away.3. That one doesn’t see.4. He picks pears

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Anaphoric demonstrative reference

In signed discourse the signer maps referents from the inner conceived space C onto the external signing arena

Mapping includes various parameters of referents: locations orientations physical interactions even abstract relations between

them Thus a constructed space C’

is created, inhabited by referents conceived of

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How are locations of referents established in the constructed space?

Signed discourse takes place in the three-dimensional signing arena

The topology of the signing arena isomorphically represents the topology of the scenes, remembered by signers from the film

The signer establishes the locations of referents in his signing arena

These locations are isomorphic to the locations of the referents in the film, as remembered by the signer

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An episode from the Pear Film

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A retelling

1. ONE-MOVEfrontsigner MANi 2. ONE-MOVEfrontsigner SHE-

GOAT3. BOY GIRL UNCLEAR4. SHE-GOAT5. Øgoat TWO-HORN HAVE.NEG6. DEMi

front PULL

1. A man is coming,2. with a she-goat.3. Male, female – it is

unclear.4. It’s a she-goat:5. It has no horns.6. This one is pulling it.

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Anaphoric demonstratives

Once the signer has explicitly indicated the location/path of a referent, nominal demonstratives may be used for further mentions of this referent

Thus demonstratives are the basic device used for repeated mention of referents in the constructed space

Formally they are the same as deictic demonstratives Often called ‘personal pronouns’ in the literature Demonstratives are based on the mechanism of

virtual pointing, but it is conventionalized in RSL What is a kind of an ad hoc, fluid device in spoken

languages, is an established, nearly lexical device in RSL

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Two discourse factors and anaphoric referential devices

factor 1: RD=1

RD=2 RD=3+ TOTALfactor 2: Ant=S Ant=O

full NP <1 % 33 % 14 % 57 % 59

zero NP 99 % 42 % 67 % 27 % 401

nominal DEM

<1 % 25 % 19 % 16 % 27

TOTAL346

(100%)24

(100%)43

(100%)74

(100%)487

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Use of zero expressions under RD > 1

49 usages (12% of all zeroes) Pragmatic and semantic clues that help to

identify the referent of a zero expression: certain predicates associated with a particular

referent (RIDE-BICYCLE; HOLD-BICYCLE)

The process of role-shifting (Padden 1986): by shifting (rotating) the body and changing

his/her facial expression the signer shows that s/he is currently “acting” for one of the referents

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Role-shifting

1. Øboy LOOKdown

2. Øboy BE-ABOUT ONE PEAR ONE TAKE-ROUND

3. Øboy LOOKup

role-shifting4. DEMup

man PICK-ROUNDrole-shifting

5. Øboy LOOKdown

6. Øboy TAKE-ROUND

1. He [the boy] looks down.2. He is about to take one pear.3. He looks up.

role-shifting4. That one (the man) is picking pears.

role-shifting5. He (the boy) looks down.6. He takes one.

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Referential function of nominal demonstratives

Nominal demonstratives are not particularly sensitive to discourse factors:

factor 1: RD=1

RD=2 RD=3+ TOTAL

factor 2: Ant=S Ant=O

nominal DEM

<1 % 25 % 19 % 16 % 27

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In case of intermediate referent activation, full NPs and demonstratives compete

In case of low activation (RD=3+) full NPs strongly prevail (57%)

Apparently, information on the location of a referent in the constructed space can be assumed available to the addressee only for a limited time

Full NPsvs nominal demonstratives

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Full NPs vs demonstratives

1. Øboy CYCLE

2. Øboy OBJECT-MOVEsignerforward

3. Øboy GO-AWAYsignerleft-forward

4. DEMup MAN STILL PICK-PEAR5. CYCLE DEMboy

front

6. Øboy OBJECT-MOVEsignerforward

1. He (the boy) is cycling.

2. He is riding forward.3. He goes away.4. That man is still

picking pears.5. This one is cycling.6. He is riding forward.

11

2

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Conclusions on reference in RSL

Types of referential devices and factors of reference are analogous to those of spoken languages

Some devices, only embryonically present in spoken languages, are strongly employed in RSL: virtual pointing role-shifting

This is apparently due to the fundamentally spatio-visual character of RSL

Studying signed languages gives us a new perspective on spoken languages

Recognition of two fundamental types of languages, spoken and signed, appears indispensable for a general theory of language

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V. A wider picture

The world surrounding us is multimodalWe are multimodal organismsObviously language and communication

are mutimodalAs it often happens, those specializing

in applied fields have understood the importance of multimodality before pure scholars and theorists

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Multimodality in technology

TV is superior to radioMultimodal communication devices Internet, especially Web 2.0, is all

multimodalMultimodal GPS

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The multimodal flight finder enables rapid task completion by enabling the user to interact via a multiplicity of user interaction modalities

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Stages of multimodal integration, from Cohen and Oviatt 2006

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Multimodality in biological sciences

“Within biology, experimental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, a separate rapidly growing literature has clarified that multisensory perception and integration cannot be predicted by studying the senses in isolation.”

(Cohen and Oviatt 2006)

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Multimodality in communication studies and semiotics

Kress G & van Leeuwen T (2001). Multimodal discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold.

‘‘A multimodal approach assumes that the message is ‘spread across’ all the modes of communication. If this is so, then each mode is a partial bearer of the overall meaning of the message. All modes, speech and writing included, are then seen as always partial bearers of meaning only. This is a fundamental challenge to hitherto current notions of ‘language’ as a full means of making meaning’’ (Kress, 2002: 6).

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Multimodal Analysis Lab (Singapore): collaboration of social scientists and computer scientists

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Multimodality in computational linguistics

Gibbon D, Mertins I & Moore R (eds.) Handbook of multimodal and spoken dialogue systems: resources, terminology and product evaluation. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 2000

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Multimodal corpora

LREC-2008 (Language Resources and Evaluation Conference) Blache P., Bertrand R., Ferré G. 2008. Creating

and exploiting multimodal annotated corpora. Gallo C.G., Jaeger T.F., Allen J., Swift M. 2008.

Production in a multimodal corpus: How speakers communicate complex actions

Kitazawa Sh., Kiriyama Sh., Kasami T., Ishikawa Sh., Otani N., Horiuchi H., Takebayashii Y. 2008. A Multimodal infant behavior annotation for developmental analysis of demonstrative expressions

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Synthesis

LeVine P & Scollon R (eds.) Discourse and technology: multimodal discourse analysis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 2004

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Conclusions

“Normal” linguists, researching conventional verbal material, need to understand that further progress in linguistics is impossible if one ignores the multimodality of language

Language in the understanding of the 20th century mainstream linguistics is an abstraction, very remote from reality. We live in the multimodal world, this is where language evolved and where it functions, and this is what we need to realize if we want to understand it

Taking the multimodal perspective into account can help to adequately approach classical questions of narrow linguistics

Choice between continuing the habits of mainstream linguistics and swtiching to multimodality amounts to the choice between Impoverishment vs. richness Stagnation vs. innovation Isolation vs. interdisciplinarity

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Acknowledgements

Julia NikolaevaVera Podlesskaya Evgenia Prozorova Ekaterina El’bert

MULTIMODAL LINGUISTICS: Directions of research Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, RAN)...

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