Abstract
This paper reviews how the body lean focuses constituents in ASL, as reported by Wilbur and Patschke (1998), and then examines parallel JSL data for similar non-manual focusing strategies. We show that while focusing strategies types in sign languages use the same channels as spoken languages, the focus types appear to yield varying methods of focusing patterns which are language specific. The contrast of ASL and JSL patterns show that these methods are not mode specific. Topics for further study are suggested.
