Simultaneity of Signer Certainty in Turkish Sign Language (Tid)

Abstract

As collaborative discourse participants, interlocutors are expected to convey how mucAs collaborative discourse participants, interlocutors are expected to convey how much certain they are about the proposition that they put forward in the discourse. In spoken language literature, speakers are shown to use various strategies to convey their certainty like attitude verbs, prosody, or gestures. Sign language literature reported that signers mostly modulate their manual (hands) signs and nonmanuals (face and body movements), yet there is no study investigating how both channels interact in the expression of certainty. The current study tests how much different sentence types and nonmanuals affect the signer certainty in Turkish Sign Language (TİD) in a rating study. More specifically, I show that signers interpret signer certainty by taking into account cues from both channels. Within the framework of threshold semantics, I discuss that sentences set the certainty threshold, and nonmanuals boost or deboost the threshold. Specifically, head nod increases the threshold while squint decreases it, thus providing further support for the dynamic nature of thresholds.

Keywords: nonmanual markers, signer certainty, Turkish Sign Language, simultaneity