Memories of Embodied Actions: From Spoken Language to Sign Language, From Sign Language to Tactile Sign Language

Abstract

This study offers a critique of representationalist theories of cognition by observing how embodied actions, such as speakers' mouth movements during speech and listeners' nodding to indicate a collaborative attitude, are encoded as bodily memories. This paper draws on a corpus-based micro-analysis of multimodal interaction using sign language and tactile sign language and considers two phenomena: (1) the use of mouthing during sign language interaction, and (2) the use of nodding and backchannel cues during tactile sign language interaction. In analysis 1, I found that native signers used mouthing in ways that resembled its original function (e.g., for conveying images of unknown words in their minds). In analysis 2, I found examples in which, at early stages of using tactile sign language, deafblind individuals with congenital deafness used nodding and backchannel cues similar to a visual signer's. However, deafblind individuals with a long history of tactile signing shifted drastically toward a more tactile modality for expressing backchannel cues. As a result of these observations, I apply insights from research regarding embodied actions to communication involving sign language and tactile sign language.