When referents are seen and heard

Abstract

Constructed action is a referential strategy whereby signers and speakers use their bodies and/or voices to depict referents and their actions. Using a corpus-based study, this chapter compares constructed action in LSFB and Belgian French. It shows both that LSFB signers use constructed action to denote referents more frequently than Belgian French speakers do and that the two language communities use an overlapping set of articulators to enact referents. However, it also sheds light on differences in the use of these articulators, notably facial expression and the use of hand and arm movements, across LSFB and Belgian French. By documenting this referential strategy in a signed and a spoken language, this study informs the field of comparative semiotics.