Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to propound an argument of turn-taking mechanism in Japanese Sign Language (or JSL) conversation. A great deal of effort has been made on clarifying the fact of JSL. Previous studies have focused on quantitative profile of signals (e.g., form, type or function). However, in order to understand features of signals, we should make more detailed and qualitative clarification about how signals are related to conversational sequence. In this paper, using videotaped and scripted data, I illustrate an interactive relationship between gaze-shifting, handholding and adjacency pair (Schegloff and Sacks 1973) in JSL conversation. As a result of analysis, I found several features of gaze-shifting and hand-holding. (1) Gaze-shift is functioned as a prior rule of turn-taking in JSL conversations rather than the signal. (2) Hand-holding has a positive function which projects the 3rd turn. These features can be understood as a property of sign language which components are displayed visually. To make these arguments more cogent, we should like to analyze more data and should like to approach sequential organization of JSL from other view point.
