PAOLA PIETRANDREA Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language T studies recognizing sign languages as full-fledged languages (Stokoe ; Klima and Bellugi ) were undertaken while the formal linguistic paradigm was evolving. Within the formal linguistics framework it was assumed that what distinguishes language is that it is generated—independently from every interaction with other cognitive activity—by a separate part of the brain. If this is the case, then proper linguistic structures must be arbitrary (i.e., they cannot exhibit any influence by extralinguistic reality or cognition of reality, which would deny the autonomy and the separateness of their generation). It is clear that, within this framework, the task of providing evi- dence for the linguistic status of the communicative systems that deaf people use was complicated by the high degree of iconicity that these systems exhibit. This explains why most studies conducted on iconic- ity intended to explain it away. In studies conducted on American Sign Language (ASL), Bellugi and Siple () observed that iconic- ity does not play a role in the memorization of signs. Frishberg () argued that iconicity tends to diminish diachronically. For people unfamiliar with ASL, Bellugi and Klima () and Klima and Bel- lugi () found that iconicity only partially facilitates the compre- hension of individual signs and that even the iconicity recognizable Paola Pietrandrea, doctoral candidate in linguistics at the University of Rome, Rome, Italy, has been working for several years on theoretical and methodological issues concerning sign languages, collaborating with the Division of Neuropsychol- ogy of Language and Deafness of the Institute of Psychology of the National Re- search Council (CNR) in Rome, and serving as adjunct lecturer for the University of New Mexico Linguistics Department in Albuquerque. SLSV. N. S.......................... 9363$$ $CH4 02-08-02 09:06:10 PS
Transcript
P A O L A P I E T R A N D R E A
Iconicity and Arbitrariness inItalian Sign Language
T studies recognizing sign languages as full-fledgedlanguages (Stokoe ; Klima and Bellugi ) were undertakenwhile the formal linguistic paradigm was evolving. Within the formallinguistics framework it was assumed that what distinguishes languageis that it is generated—independently from every interaction withother cognitive activity—by a separate part of the brain. If this is thecase, then proper linguistic structures must be arbitrary (i.e., theycannot exhibit any influence by extralinguistic reality or cognition ofreality, which would deny the autonomy and the separateness of theirgeneration).
It is clear that, within this framework, the task of providing evi-dence for the linguistic status of the communicative systems that deafpeople use was complicated by the high degree of iconicity that thesesystems exhibit. This explains why most studies conducted on iconic-ity intended to explain it away. In studies conducted on AmericanSign Language (ASL), Bellugi and Siple () observed that iconic-ity does not play a role in the memorization of signs. Frishberg ()argued that iconicity tends to diminish diachronically. For peopleunfamiliar with ASL, Bellugi and Klima () and Klima and Bel-lugi () found that iconicity only partially facilitates the compre-hension of individual signs and that even the iconicity recognizable
Paola Pietrandrea, doctoral candidate in linguistics at the University of Rome,Rome, Italy, has been working for several years on theoretical and methodologicalissues concerning sign languages, collaborating with the Division of Neuropsychol-ogy of Language and Deafness of the Institute of Psychology of the National Re-search Council (CNR) in Rome, and serving as adjunct lecturer for the Universityof New Mexico Linguistics Department in Albuquerque.
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
in individual signs turns out to be undetectable when those signs areproduced in context.
More recently, iconicity has been rediscovered as a crucial concep-tual construct within the functional approaches to linguistic inquiry(Bybee ; Haiman ; Simone ), which claim that linguisticstructures cannot be investigated without considering their communica-tive, pragmatic, and semantic functions, the former being shaped bythe latter (Hopper ). In this framework, iconicity—either strictlyconsidered as the reflection in linguistic structures of extralinguistic real-ity or more generically as the influence exerted by the human body(cognitive abilities included) on linguistic structures (see Simone for this distinction)—is considered as strong evidence for the nonauton-omy of language. The iconicity that sign languages exhibit is consideredas something of a special interest, and many recent studies have exploredthe presence of and the role played by iconicity in the grammaticalprocesses of ASL (Wilcox and Wilcox ), in the sublexical organiza-tion of the semantic domain of spatio-temporal relations in Italian SignLanguage (LIS) (Pizzuto et al. ), in the cross-cultural, crosslinguisticcomprehension of sign languages (Pizzuto and Volterra ), and inLIS poetry (Russo , Russo et al. ).
In the present study I present the results of a quantitative analysis(described in the following section) that evaluates the incidence oficonicity of a sign language, LIS, in its lexicon: I anticipate a highincidence of iconicity. On the one hand, I interpret this high inci-dence of iconicity as a response to a need for economy. On the otherhand, I argue that the high incidence of iconicity does not rule outthe possibility that a profound arbitrariness governs the lexical orga-nization of the language in view of the fact that arbitrariness is anecessary response to a need for economy. In order to justify thecoexistence of iconicity and arbitrariness in the LIS lexicon, I suggestthat we revisit the notion of arbitrariness, echoing Saussure’s originalformulation of arbitrariness (and Haiman’s notion of emancipation).
Analysis
A structured corpus of LIS productions is as yet unavailable. Conse-quently, the only possible quantitative approach to the study of ico-nicity has been a calculation of the incidence of iconicity in the LIS
lexicon represented in a corpus of , different signs drawn byPietrandrea () from three LIS dictionaries (Angelini et al. ;Romeo ; Radutzky ).
In order to evaluate the incidence of iconicity in the LIS lexicon,I calculated the number of occurrences of formational parameters(namely handshapes and locations) whose form was iconically associ-ated with the portion of meaning they conveyed.
Before providing the results of this analysis, I want to clarify ()what I intend to show with the form and meaning of formationalparameters, () why I calculated the incidence of iconicity at the levelof formational parameters, () what classification of LIS parameters Iused, and () why I excluded movements from the analysis.
It is well known that every sign of a sign language can be analyzedaccording to three formational parameters: () the handshape assumedby the hand articulating the sign, () the movement produced by thehands, () the body location where the sign is performed (if the sign isnot articulated close to a particular body location but generically infront of the signer, it is considered as articulated in neutral space).Stokoe () recognized these formational parameters as the mini-mal distinctive units of signs, commonly identified as the phonemesof sign languages.
Boyes-Braem (), though, showed that formational parame-ters have more than a phonemic function: The same handshapes (orhandshapes that shared common material features, such as the exten-sion of the fingers or the closure of the hand) occurred consistentlyin signs belonging to the same semantic field. These handshapes thusappeared to have not only a distinctive value but also a semantic one.Boyes-Braem’s hypothesis was confirmed by many studies conductedon different sign languages, which listed meanings consistently asso-ciated not only with handshapes but also with locations and move-ments (Volterra ; Radutzky ; Pizzuto et al. for LIS;Brennan for British Sign Language).
Formational parameters can thus be considered the minimal sig-nificative units of a sign. They consist of a form—their physical real-ization (the shape of the hand, the body parts used as locations, theshape of the movement)—and a meaning—the portion of the sign’s
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
meaning conveyed by the single parameter. As an example, Figure shows the LIS sign for , which conveys the meaning of flatobject. The location of the sign conveys the meaning mouth, and themovement conveys the meaning to rub.
In addition, since Boyes-Braem’s study, it has become clear thatthe meaning associated with formational parameters often seems tobe related iconically to the form of those parameters. In Figure theflatness of the handshape is iconically associated with the flatness of anapkin, the mouth location is iconically related to the body part in-volved in the use of a napkin, and the rubbing movement iconicallymirrors rubbing one’s own mouth when using a napkin.
To sum up, first, formational parameters can be considered as theminimal significative units of a sign; second, iconicity can also bedetected at this level. Thus, the incidence of iconicity in formationalparameters is an important indicator of the incidence of iconicity inthe LIS lexicon. That is the reason I calculated the incidence of ico-nicity at this level.
Different classifications and notations of LIS formational parame-ters have been proposed (Volterra ; Radutzky ; Caselli et al.). My analysis indicates the signs of the corpus using the classifi-cation of LIS parameters proposed by Radutzky (), who distin-guishes handshapes, locations, and movements.
Unfortunately, the notation of movements creates many prob-lems: The movements of the corpus cannot always be easily and con-sistently described by attributing one of the forty values Radutzkyproposed. In order to describe certain movements, it is often neces-sary to use combinations of those values, and at times more than oneof these combinations can describe the same movement.
The inconsistencies in the notation of movements might haveintroduced biases in this quantitative analysis. For this reason I choseto limit the calculation of the incidence of iconicity to handshapesand locations.
Results
In the analysis I interpreted iconicity in a strict sense, that is, I consid-ered as iconic only those handshapes and locations that presented arelationship of similarity with the extralinguistic entity they referredto.
I found the following:
• Fifty percent of the occurrences of handshapes are motivated by aniconic association between their form and the portion of meaningthey convey (Figures –);
• Sixty-seven percent of the occurrences of body locations are moti-vated by an iconic association between the locations and the portionof meaning they convey (Figures –);
• No occurrences of neutral space are motivated by an iconic associa-tion between that portion of space and the portion of meaning itconveys.
The Iconicity of Handshapes
I want to make a couple of points about the results of the analysisthat may not be immediately evident from the raw data.
First, every handshape has at least some iconic occurrences.1 Sec-ond, there are many ways in which a handshape can exhibit an iconicrelationship with the reality it represents. For example, a handshapecan iconically represent () the form of the object it represents (Fig-ures –), () the way the hands manipulate or grasp the object (or a
. Pietrandrea () presents a complete list of handshape examples.
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
F . In , the flatness of the handshape conveys the meaning flatness (of ahorizontal surface, such as that of a table).
F . In , the handshape conveys the meaning roundness (of a stone, forinstance).
part of it) (Figures –), () the form assumed by the hands of aperson performing the action or being in the state represented (Fig-ures –), or () the cultural meaning attributed to the form of aperson’s hands (Figure ).
A complete list of the mechanisms used in LIS handshapes to es-tablish iconic relationships with the reality they represent is beyondthe goals of this article.2 The preceding examples, however, highlight
F . In , the extension of the fingers conveys the meaning two symmetri-cally extended, protruding elements (such as the wings of an airplane).
F . In , the grasping position of the fingers conveys the meaning gripping asmall object (for example, a pen).
the fact that many different instances of iconicity exist in the LISlexicon.
The Iconicity of Locations
Like every handshape, every location (except neutral space) hasiconic occurrences. Before explaining the difference between neutralspace and body locations, I want to point out that body locations,too, can establish different kinds of iconic relationships with the real-ity they represent. A body location can iconically represent the bodypart as a physical place (Figures –), a feature of that body part
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
F . In , the grasping of the hand conveys the meaning grasping a thick object(for example, a steering wheel).
F . In , the position of the fingers, conveys the meaning fingersready to type on a keyboard.
(Figure ), one of the functions of that body part (Figures –),or the cultural value attributed to that body part (Figures –).
There are thus many instances of iconicity in the use of bodylocations. We can actually infer from quantitative information pro-vided in Pietrandrea () that body locations that are marked loca-tions are used to iconically refer only to body parts. In that study
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
F . In , the handshape conveys the meaning horns (as in an evil spellcast on a person).
F . In , the location (mouth) conveys the meaning of the mouthas the place where one brushes one’s teeth.
(which examined the same corpus used for the present study), Ifound that percent of the signs are articulated in neutral space and percent on body locations. In other words, one location—theneutral space—occurs in percent of the signs. The other fifteenlocations—the body locations (considered as distinctive in Radutz-ky’s classification)—are found in the remaining percent. Thatmeans that the unmarked location of a sign is the neutral space.When a sign is articulated on one of the fifteen body locations, we
F . In , the location (ear) conveys the meaning the ear (as theplace where one wears a hearing aid).
F . In , the location (mouth), conveys the meaning the color red (as in thecolor of the lips).
have a marked choice, presumably made with an informative goal.What could this be? We have seen that percent of body locationoccurrences are used iconically to refer to body parts. Every singlebody location rarely occurs. When it does, it is mainly ( percent ofthe cases) used to refer iconically to the body part it represents andto incorporate the meaning of that body part into the meaning of thesign. In addition, we know that the incorporation of meanings re-lated to body parts is both quite common and productive (even if lessvisible) in spoken languages as well. Thus we can say that body
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
F . In , the location (ear) conveys the meaning the function of the ear(i.e., hearing).
F . In , the location (mouth), convey the meaning the function of themouth (i.e., eating).
locations are the marked choice for iconically referring to the speak-er’s body and for incorporating into the language the meanings asso-ciated with body parts.3 It thus comes as no surprise that neutralspace—the unmarked location, with no iconic and no informativerole—presents no iconic occurrences.
. The fact that percent of occurrences of body locations do not have aniconic meaning can be explained by the diachronic trend toward the opacization ofmeaning (Frishberg ). We discuss this point later.
F . In , the location (mouth), conveys the meaning the function of themouth (i.e., speaking).
F . In , the location (ear), conveys the meaning counting the numberof years after one’s birth (following the Italian tradition of pulling someone’s ears for everyyear that person has lived).
Iconicity as Linguistic Economy
The data in the previous section indicate iconicity in the lexical orga-nization of LIS.
Boyes-Braem () provided the first explanation of such a highincidence of iconicity in sign languages. Sign languages, she wrote,use the hands with a linguistic purpose. In daily life the hands areemployed in many tasks, such as pointing, manipulating objects,
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
F . In , the location (ear), the handshape and the movement conveythe meaning the place where cherries are traditionally put as a decoration).
counting, and, in certain cultures (the Italian, for example), repre-senting objects. It is economic that sign languages make efficient useof the hands in the creation of signs.
One can easily extend Boyes-Braem’s argument to explain thelinguistic use of body parts. The speaker’s body is always present inthe speech situation of sign languages. It is economic to use this pres-ence to express meanings that are related to body parts.
Boyes-Braem’s explanation is completely satisfactory. Neverthe-less, the relationship between the manipulation of objects and theirrepresentation and, more generally, the incidence of iconicity in signlanguages deserves more discussion, especially in light of recent evi-dence that neurological studies provide.
Manipulation and Representation
Boyes-Braem considered the linguistic use of the ‘‘precodification’’of hands as economical. Neurological evidence that manipulation andrepresentation of objects are strictly connected has recently come tolight (Gallese et al. ; Rizzolatti et al. ). That research indi-cates that monkey brains contain certain neurons, called mirror neu-rons, that are associated with the manipulation of objects.
These neurons are located in the rostral part of inferior area (most likely, the homologue of Broca’s area—the language area—inhumans) and are highly congruent. That is, they fire only in the
presence of a meaningful (goal-oriented) action and not after a ge-neric movement. They do not fire when the object is simply pre-sented without manipulation. Moreover, some are highly selective.That is, they are sensitive to the way an action is performed andconsequently fire only when an object is grasped; others fire onlywhen the object is held.
Significantly—and in spite of their high selectivity—these neu-rons fire both when a monkey actively performs an action and whenit observes someone else performing this action. Finally, these neu-rons have motor properties and are also present in humans (Arbiband Rizzolatti ).
The properties of mirror neurons have led Rizzolatti and Arbib() to suggest that these neurons may be responsible for the emer-gence of language. The firing of these neurons represents an actioninternally. Due to the motor properties of these neurons, this internalaction can produce (when not completely inhibited) a movement inthe observer of the manipulation. This movement may have estab-lished the necessary evolutionary link between performer and ob-server that causes them to become sender and receiver of acommunicative message. In fact, this involuntary movement in thereceiver creates in the sender an awareness that the action may berecognized and that it may bias the observer’s behavior. This aware-ness may cause the sender to use a pantomime of the action to biasthe observer’s behavior. At this point a sort of gestural communica-tion would be established.
For our discussion of iconicity in sign languages, one point is quiteimportant: Sign languages often represent objects metonymically byindicating the way the hands manipulate them (e.g., the signs and in Figures and ). This representation is called iconic. The resultsof the studies cited earlier suggest that it is worth exploring the hy-pothesis that manipulation and representation within a social context(i.e., involving at least a couple of subjects) are driven more by thesame neuronal activity than tied by an iconic relationship.
Substance of Visual-Gestural Representation
For a long time, discussion in sign language linguistics centeredaround the distinction of sign languages from mere gestural systems.
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
Until recently (Armstrong et al. ; Wilcox , ), insuffi-cient attention was paid to the gestural substance of sign languages.Nevertheless, a grasp of the visual-gestural substance of sign languagesis crucial to understanding the high incidence of iconicity.
Wilcox () notes that, just as words of vocal languages aremade up of sounds, signs consist of hand movements, and these areboth actual objects in the world as well as representations of objectsin the world. Unlike sounds, hand movements are visible objects inand about the world. As visible objects, hand movements exploit thefour dimensions of the world (Hockett ).
The fact that visible gestures share the same substance of the phys-ical world (at least that part of the world most frequently referred toin language, i.eible entities4) somehow explains why gestures repre-sent it in a more detailed and holistic fashion than sounds do. Ges-tures do not switch from a visual world to an acoustic representationof it; there is no need to adjust a four-dimensional world to the mo-nolinearity of the acoustic channel (Hockett ). Therefore, ges-tural representations share more with physical reality than acousticrepresentations do. That is, they are more iconic.
Curiously, the most frequently cited example of iconic represen-tation in vocal languages is onomatopoeia (since Saussure []). This shows that when the linguistic substance is the same asthe extralinguistic one, vocal languages also provide an iconic repre-sentation. In other cases, such as sound-symbolism, the iconicity ofthe representation is less direct and less clear because it is subject to asynesthetic switch.
Summary
This article has shown that () sign languages express extralinguisticreality through the meaningful use of hands; () the manipulation of
. The animacy hierarchies that Silverstein () and Dixon () definedindicate that visible entities are the most frequently referred to, implying that refer-ence to humans is less marked than reference to animate entities, which in turn isless marked than reference to inanimate entities. We know that an unmarked refer-ence has in general a higher frequency than a marked one, and we also know thatnonvisible entities (such as sounds, sensations, and ideas) are a subset of inanimateentities. These points should be sufficient for us to infer that we talk mainly aboutvisible entities.
objects may be neurologically linked with their representation insigns; and () the articulators of sign languages and the entities (thevisual ones) they most frequently refer to share the same substanceand exploit the same number of spatial-temporal dimensions.
The economy of the effect of the extralinguistic on sign languagerepresentation is so evident that one might ask why sign languagesshould not be iconic. The next section addresses this question.
Arbitrariness in the LIS Lexicon
In spite of the strong presence of iconicity, the LIS lexicon is charac-terized by a deep arbitrariness. First, the iconicity present in the lexi-cal organization is phonemized, that is, the depicting of referents canbe conveyed only by the few phonological patterns the languageallows. For example, LIS signs, although iconic, can utilize onlythose handshapes, locations, and movements the system allows. Everysign language, as well as every vocal language, selects its phonologicalpatterns arbitrarily. So, for example, the handshape used in the ASLsign for (Figure ) is not part of the parameter inventoryof LIS.
Second, as Figures – illustrate, arbitrariness is characteristic ofthe selection of the aspects of articulators and referents consideredsalient at the linguistic level.
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
F . The LIS signs for ’ and
F . The LIS signs for , , and
These signs were presented as good examples of the presence oficonic elements in LIS, but they are also good examples of the pres-ence of arbitrariness. The signs in Figure are articulated with thesame handshape, but different aspects of that handshape are selectedas linguistically relevant. In the first, ’ , thephysical salience of the handshape is selected and used to express themeaning hands of a person washing the hands. In the second sign, ,the flatness of the handshape is selected and used to express the mean-ing flat surface. The signs in Figure , too, are articulated with thesame handshape, but in , the roundness of the handshape isselected and used to express the roundness of stones; in , the grasp-ing function is selected and used to express the meaning grasping asteering wheel; and in the physical salience of the hands-hape is selected and used to express the meaning hands of a person inchains.
In Figure different aspects of the same location (the ear) areselected and used to express different meanings relating to the ear. Inthe first sign, , the location is used for its physical salienceto express the meaning ear. In the second sign, , the func-tional salience of the location expresses the meaning place that oneuses to hear. In and , the third and fourth signsrespectively, the cultural salience of the location expresses the mean-ing of the place where the years are counted or the place where traditionallycherries are put as a decoration.
In , the same location, the mouth, is used () for itsphysical salience to express the meaning mouth, () for one of itsphysical features (redness) in the sign , () for its functional sa-lience in to express the meaning place used to eat, and () forits functional salience again in to express the meaning placeused to speak (two different functions of the mouth) (Figure ).
Thus, given a formational parameter, it is not possible to predictthe formational parameter’s meaning because it is not possible to pre-dict which aspect of its form will be used for the expressive purpose.In the same way, it is not possible to predict which sign will be used
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
to express any given referent (Klima and Bellugi ) because it isnot possible to predict which aspects of the referent will be selectedfor linguistic purposes. Figure represents the ASL and LIS signsfor . In the ASL sign the flatness of the object has been selectedas salient, whereas in the Italian sign the form of the hand graspingthe object has been selected (Caselli et al. ). Both signs are nev-ertheless iconic.
Finally, the data show that many occurrences of handshapes andlocations are totally arbitrary: Fifty percent of the occurrences of han-dshapes and percent of the occurrences of locations present noevident motivation (for two examples, see Figures –).
F . The ASL and LIS signs for
F . In , the handshape is arbitrary or at least is not clearly iconic.
F . In , the location is arbitrary or at least is not clearly iconic.
Haiman () suggests that arbitrariness would result from thegeneralization of iconic elements. Even if one is careful not to applythis interpretative framework tout court to the arbitrariness of theoccurrences of handshapes and locations, evidence of this arbitrari-ness exists (Frishberg ). Frishberg compared signs of old FrenchSign Language, signs of early American Sign Language, and signs ofcurrent ASL. She found a general diachronic tendency of signstoward a higher degree of codification and arbitrariness. Signs, infact, tend to concentrate diachronically in the neutral space, to bearticulated in a more reduced signing space, to become more sym-metrical, and, important for this discussion, to tend to generalize themeaning of formational parameters.
Arbitrariness as Linguistic Economy
Although a need for economy motivates the high incidence of ico-nicity in the LIS lexicon, it seems that arbitrariness actually rules thesystem. The previous section showed that the selection of phonemesand morphemes is arbitrary; the selection of the linguistically salientaspects of referents and articulators is arbitrary; and most associationsbetween meaning and form of formational parameters are arbitrary.
The presence of arbitrariness seems necessary for the managementof the system. Let us consider what would happen if arbitrariness didnot rule the lexical organization of LIS.
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
First of all, phonemization would be impossible. Martinet ()noted that phonemization is the first condition of economy (i.e., thefirst condition of manageability of a system). In a system withoutphonemization every sign would be the depiction of its referent.There would be neither reason nor opportunity to arbitrarily seg-ment the material substance of signs in a core of phonological pat-terns. A system without phonemization would express its contents inan analogic way, providing a sign for every referent and obliging itsusers to employ an enormous effort in memorization.
Even if users could memorize the number of signs of such a sys-tem, they would find it impossible to express contents not knowndirectly by other users. In any case, the number of signs would notbe potentially infinite (Simone ). Finally, there would be nochange over time; that is, signs could not lose, expand, overlap, orchange their meanings (ibid.).
From a semantic point of view, a lexical system without arbitrari-ness would be a mere labeling of extralinguistic referents. The foun-dation of meaning generation in a language endowed with such alexical system should be sought in extralinguistic reality and not insocial agreement (de Mauro ). Arbitrariness thus guarantees tosociety the availability of a flexible tool of meaning generation in-stead of a rigid one tied to extralinguistic depictions.
To sum up, a nonarbitrary system would not be phonemized andwould clearly be limited in the number of its signs, each of whichwould be incapable of change, semantically stranded in extralinguisticreality, and consequently uneconomical.
The Economic Interplay between Iconicity and Arbitrariness
The observation of a small portion of the linguistic organization ofLIS, such as the citation lexicon, shows an enormous complexity inthe interplay between arbitrariness and iconicity. It seems that adeeper need—for linguistic economy—rules this interplay. LIS userscan exploit the economy of depicting parts of extralinguistic realityin the language as long as this exploitation guarantees good manage-ability and the opportunity of expanding the language without effort(i.e., as long as it is economical). The same need for economy thenpushes users toward an arbitrary organization of the lexical system,
which explains the phonemization, the arbitrary selection of salientaspects of signifier and signified, and the arbitrariness in the relation-ship between form and meaning of formational parameters.
Arbitrariness and iconicity interplay in vocal language as well, butthe evidence of iconic phenomena in sign languages makes these lan-guages a privileged terrain for the observation of this interplay.
A Revisited Notion of Arbitrariness
So far the sense given to arbitrariness has not been made explicit. Westarted out by considering arbitrariness as a synonym of convention-ality and consequently as an antonym of iconicity. This is the sensegiven to arbitrariness by formal linguistics and commonly acceptedin sign language linguistics.
The observation of the frequent and overt phenomenon of ico-nicity in LIS clearly shows that at least in this language most associa-tions of form and meaning are unconventional. LIS tends to reflectreality and does not create its structures in a completely autonomousmanner: Often the reflection of reality is clearly economic. If weconsider arbitrariness in the sense of conventionality, we must con-clude that LIS is not ruled by arbitrariness.
On the other hand, earlier arguments in this article show thatsomething that we also called arbitrariness is a necessary resource forlinguistic economy because it allows the language to become emanci-pated (Haiman ) from the depiction of extralinguistic reality,which guarantees the phonemization and digitization of signs, a po-tentially infinite number of signs in the lexicon, the ability of thesesigns to change their meaning, and the social creation of theirmeaning.
This emancipation is an underlying condition for the linguisticityof the system, but it is not at all necessary for every single part of thesystem to be independent of the depiction of reality in order for usto call that system a language.Interestingly, Saussure’s ( [])notion of arbitrariness is traditionally considered as the first formula-tion of the autonomy of language and is not at all incompatible withthis revisited notion of arbitrariness. More than stressing the conven-tionality of linguistic signs, Saussure claimed that what defines a lan-guage as such is the arbitrariness of the form the language gives to its
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
phonic and cognitive substance (de Mauro ; Simone ). Inother words, its independence in selecting among the substantial as-pects of articulators and referents creates linguistic associations of sig-nifiants and signifies. In this sense Saussure wrote that a language is aform—not a substance.
In this article I have shown a sign language giving an arbitraryform to an iconic substance (the gestural one). It will be hard to denythat what defines the LIS lexicon as linguistic is not the economicaliconicity of the gestural substance but rather the arbitrariness operat-ing in the digitalization of the gestural substance and in the segmenta-tion of the cognitive substance (i.e., what we called the emancipationfrom the depiction of reality). In other words, what defines this signlanguage as a language is its form—not its substance.
Accepting this premise does not mean denying that the study oficonicity and embodiment, so visible in sign languages, is crucial fora deep understanding of the logic and evolutionary link betweenpraxis, perception, and language (Arbib and Rizollatti ; Rizzo-latti and Arbib ; Armstrong et al. ; Wilcox ). This isjust another point of view on language.
The author wishes to thank Sherman Wilcox, Elena Pizzuto, Tullio deMauro, and Virginia Volterra for the helpful comments and criticisms theyprovided during the preparation of this article.
All pictures except Figures and are drawn from Il Dizionario Bi-lingue Elementare della Lingua Italiana dei Segni () by E. Radutzky.
Figure is reprinted from Sign Language for Everyone () by J. Huff-man, B. Hoffman, D. Gransee, A. Fox, J. James, and J. Schmitz, JoyceMotion Picture Company, Northridge, Calif.
Figure is drawn from Linguaggio e Sordita () by M. C. Caselli, S.Maragna, L. Pagliari Rampelli, and V. Volterra. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.
References
Angelini, N., R. Borgioli, A. Folchi, and M. Mastromatteo. . I Primi Segni della Lingua Italiana dei Segni. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.
Arbib, M. A., and G. Rizzolatti. . Neural Expectations: A PossibleEvolutionary Path from Manual Skills to Language. Communication andCognition (/):–.
Armstrong, D. F., W. C. Stokoe, and S. E. Wilcox. . Gesture and theNature of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bellugi, U., and E. Klima. . Two Faces of Sign: Iconic and Abstract. InOrigins and Evolution of Language and Speech, ed. S. Harnad, D. Hoest,and I. Lancaster, –. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Bellugi U., and P. Siple. . Remembering in Signs. Cognition : –.Boyes-Braem, P. . Features of the Handshape in American Sign Lan-
guage. Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley.Brennan, M. . Word Formation in BSL. University of Stockholm,
Stockholm.Bybee, J. . Morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Caselli, M. C., S. Maragna, L. Pagliari Rampelli, and V. Volterra. .
Linguaggio e Sordita. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.Dixon, R. M. W. . Ergativity. Language :–.Frishberg, N.. Arbitrariness and Iconicity: Historical Change in Ameri-
can Sign Language. Language :–.Gallese, V., L. Fadiga, L. Fogassi, and G. Rizzolatti. . Action Recogni-
tion in the Premotor Cortex. Brain :–.Haiman, J. Natural Syntax. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.———. Ritualization and the Development of Language. . In Perspec-
tives on Grammaticalization, ed. W. Pagliuca, –. Amsterdam: JohnBenjamins.
———. . Talk Is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation and the Evolution ofLanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hockett, C. F. . In Search of Jove’s Brow. American Speech: A Quarterlyof Linguistic Usage ():–.
Hopper, P. . Emergent Grammar and the a Priori Postulate. In Linguis-tics in Context: Connecting Observations and Understanding, ed. D. Tannen,–. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
Klima, E., and U. Bellugi. . The Signs of Language. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.
Martinet, A. . Economie des Changements Phonetiques: Traite dePhonologie Diachronique. Bern: Francke AG Verlag.
de Mauro, T. . Introduction and Commentary to F. de Saussure: Corsodi Linguistica Generale. Bari, Italy: Laterza.
Pietrandrea, P. . Analisi Semiotica dei Dizionari della Lingua Italiana deiSegni. Diss., Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Roma.
———. Sublexical Regularities and Linguistic Economy in Italian SignLanguage: A Quantitative Analysis. . In Proceedings of the First An-nual High Desert Linguistics Society Conference, ed. C. Berkenfield, D.Nordquist, and A. Grieve-Smith, –. Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico.
Pizzuto, E., E. Cameracanna, S. Corazza, and V. Volterra. . Termsfor Spatio-Temporal Relations in Italian Sign Language. In Iconicity inLanguage, ed. R. Simone, –. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language
Pizzuto, E., and V. Volterra. . Iconicity and Transparency in Sign Lan-guages: A Cross-Linguistic Cross-Cultural View. In The Signs of Lan-guage Revisited: An Anthology in Honor of Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima,ed. K. Emmorey and H. Lane, –. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erl-baum.
Radutzky, E. . Il Dizionario Bilingue Elementare della Lingua Italiana deiSegni. Roma: Edizioni di Kappa.
Rizzolatti, G., and M. A. Arbib. . Language within Our Grasp. Trendsin Neurosciences :–.
Rizzolatti, G., L. Fadiga, M. Matelli, V. Bettinardi, D. Perani, and F. Fazio.. Localization of Grasp Representations in Humans by PositronEmission Tomography: . Observation versus Execution. ExperimentalBrain Research :–.
Romeo, O. . II Dizionario dei Segni. Bologna: Zanichelli.Russo, T. . Iconicita e Metafora nella LIS. Ph.D. diss., Universita degli
Studi di Palermo, Palermo.Russo, T., R. Giuranna, and E. Pizzuto. Forthcoming. Italian Sign Lan-
guage (LIS) Poetry: Iconic Properties and Structural Regularities. SignLanguage Studies (Special Issue on Sign Language Poetry).
de Saussure, F. . Corso di Linguistica Generale, introduction. Italian trans-lation and commentary by Tullio de Mauro. Bari, Italy: Laterza ().
Silverstein, M. . Hierarchy of Features and Ergativity. In GrammaticalCategories in Australian Languages, ed. R. M. W. Dixon. Canberra: Aus-tralian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, –.
Simone, R. . Fondamenti di Linguistica. Bari, Italy: Laterza.———. . Il Corpo del Linguaggio. Il Paradigma dell’Arbitrarieta e il
Paradigma della Sostanza. In Il Sogno di Saussure, ed. R. Simone. Bari,Italy: Laterza.
———. . Iconic Aspects of Syntax: A Pragmatic Approach. In Iconicityin Language, ed. R. Simone, –. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Stokoe, W. . Sign Language Structure. Silver Spring, Md.: Linstok Press.Volterra, V., ed. . La Lingua Italiana dei Segni. Bologna: Il Mulino.Wilcox, S. E. . Not from Jove’s Brow. Language and Communication
():–.———. . The Invention and Ritualization of Language. In The Origins
of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us, ed. B. J. King. SantaFe, N.Mex.: School of American Research Press.
Wilcox, S. and Wilcox, P. . The Gestural Expression of Modality inASL. In Modality in Discourse and Grammar, ed. J. Bybee and S. Fleisch-man. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
