From icon to abstraction in sign language: how iconicity shapes the lexicon in the visual modality

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Pamela Perniss
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429017134

Language is a unique human ability, yet the forces shaping vocabulary are little understood. A central tenet of linguistic theory is that the lexicon is arbitrary, with word and meaning related by convention alone. However, recent research gives a more nuanced view: arbitrary form-meaning relationships co-exist with and complement iconic and systematic relationships. Iconicity, the direct relationship between form and meaning, has been shown to play an important role in language learning and processing, offering a concrete grounding to our experience in the world. As a result, iconicity has been characterised as having a limited capacity to refer to abstract concepts and thus as remaining limited in its scope within the lexicon of spoken languages. Compared to the spoken modality, the visual modality of sign languages affords a high degree of iconicity. In this project, we explore how iconicity constrains form-meaning mappings in the visual modality and shapes a lexicon for both concrete and abstract concepts.We capitalise on the notion that words develop abstract meaning through the figurative use of concrete concepts while maintaining links to their origin, e.g., the concrete and abstract meaning of anchor share a core meaning of “preventing something from moving”. We investigate sign languages, the natural languages of deaf communities. These are full-fledged languages on all levels of linguistic organisation and which exhibit a high prevalence of iconicity in their lexicon. Iconicity patterns in systematic ways across semantic domains, and often signs converge in the way concepts are expressed (e.g. the sign TO-WRITE based on the action of writing). Importantly, sign languages exhibit instances of abstract concepts arising from concrete, iconic referents, e.g. in German Sign Language (DGS), the sign SCHOOL shares an iconic base with the sign TO-WRITE. This suggests that groups of iconic signs share elements that are exploited as a springboard for meaning diversification while retaining some degree of semantic relatedness (i.e. process of colexification). The iconic base of signs may be shared across sign languages (e.g. DGS and British Sign Language (BSL)), and the gestures produced by speaking communities may also have similar iconic forms due to shared conceptual representations and the shared modality. By comparing the form and meaning of signs across semantic domains in two unrelated sign languages (DGS and BSL), it will be possible to understand the underlying mechanisms by which iconicity shapes and constrains a lexicon. Comparing signs with silent gestures produced for the same concepts by non-signers in Germany and the UK will reveal the extent of shared cognitive and/or cultural bases and how these may diversify lexical forms and meanings for concrete and abstract concepts.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Gerardo Ortega, Ph.D.