抄録
When we talk about a character's spatial relationships in a story, we sometimes build a space in front of our body so that the listeners will develop an image of the narrative world. In this study, I observe the way space and viewpoint are used in Japanese signed narrative discourse. For analysis, I used published data on signed narratives. I had three focuses when analyzing the data: (1) how the narrators introduce characters in a signed narrative space, (2) how they keep the space, and (3) how they managed the viewpoint to represent character's relationship during the narration. I analyzed gaze behavior and body direction in the data using gesture studies and conversation analysis perspective, viewpoint of speaker and activity involvement. From detailed case study, I found that the signers had their own ways of maintaining this space and keeping the imagined world in the signer's mind. The narrators maintained the space consistently, and all of the signs were designed in relation to this space. For example, when the speaker shifted to another character's perspective, to represent his or her utterances, he or she kept the spatial relationship in the narrative space. While using the space, the narrators directed their gaze and body to two main places: the narrative space and the listener's face. When they looked at the narrative space, they could draw the listener's attention to that space, and when they looked at the listener's face, they could monitor his or her reactions. In conclusion, I found that the signer's gaze behavior and body direction served not only as a grammatical element in sign language but also to regulate signed conversation.
