Investigating Question-Asking in Norwegian Sign Language: A Multi-Method Approach

Abstract

Humans use language to, among other things, exchange information and work together in order to establish and negotiate shared understandings during interaction. One way this may be achieved is through questions. This dissertation explores question-asking in Norwegian Sign Language by examining questions in naturalistic conversations found in the Norwegian Sign Language Corpus. Questions (n=461) were identified and annotated within a study corpus consisting of 34 participants who engaged in dyadic, triadic, and multiparty conversations. In order to study questions in their interactive context, three frameworks were applied: Corpus Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, and Interactional Linguistics. The quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted highlight how deaf signers deploy different communicative resources in order to signal their intended activity in interactive contexts.

The first study applied a Corpus Linguistics framework and examined the structure of questions. It showed that signers show natural variation in the ways they ask questions, both across question types (e.g., content, polar, and alternative) but also within categories. However, some trends identified included the high proportion of nonmanual elements as well as the use of interactive finger pointing and palm-up to help signal questions. Even when questions were not produced with manual or nonmanual question signals, the majority still received a response from their addressee. Therefore, this points to signals beyond grammaticality which interactants orient to help interpret utterances as questions as they engage in conversation.

In the second study, which used a Conversation Analysis approach, it was revealed that signers maintained manual holds during question-asking for a number of reasons. All holds were used to monitor the response of the addressee; however, they were also shown to address (potential) trouble sources and project expectations of a response beyond a yes or no when asking a polar question. Through partial or full retractations, questioners are able to signal that their projected action has been achieved. By analyzing the projected actions by all conversational participants, the study has shown how interactants recognize and orient to the extension of the manual holds as they negotiate shared understandings.

The third study used an Interaction Linguistics framework to combine the analysis of sequentiality alongside communicative signals previously documented in the first study in order to understand the reasons questions are asked, namely the underlying social actions. While request for information was the most common reason, requests confirmation and other-initiations of repair were also frequently attested. Other categories, such as suggestions, were identified but with less frequency. The study finds certain resources were deployed when projecting particular social actions. For instance, when requesting information, signers often use interactive finger points and palm-up. In the case of requests for confirmation, signers may deploy nonmanual elements such as body leans or head nods. And finally, in other-initiated repair, signers often leveraged elements of the surrounding spoken language to signal the recent turn by the addressee as troublesome.

Overall, this dissertation finds that a multi-method approach underlines the rich complexities of question-asking. It gives new insights into the resources that members of the Norwegian Sign Language ecology deploy as they engage in social practices. This dissertation provides a first step in understanding interactional practices and how signers coordinate meanings and build shared understanding within a shared language and social ecology.