Understanding International Sign provides rich insight into the efficiency of a specific conventionalized genre of contact signing. Lori Whynot first analyses a form of expository International Sign (IS) (thirteen deaf presenters’ IS lectures, ten countries across five continents). Then, for the first time, she compares IS comprehension with native sign languages (NSL) comprehension (thirty-two deaf attendees from five countries across five continents). This two-part research also pioneers a sociolinguistic approach on IS phenomena as it questions whether inner structural features and sociodemographic elements may ease linguistic access and influence increased IS comprehension.
Understanding International Sign completes Bencie Woll's works and Rachel Rosenstock's study on expository IS, offering authentic data and solid statistical and qualitative analysis along with slightly different conceptual tools. George Lakoff & Mark Johnson's and Ron Langacker's theories on embodiment and Scott Liddell's description of real space blending provide a frame for its theoretical background. Regarding methodology, Lori Whynot applies Adam Schembri and Trevor Johnston's categorization of signs in three types (lexical, partly lexical, and nonlexical). This multimodal approach enables her to describe the extent to which linguistic and gestural material co-operate to create meaning (in composite utterances such as depicting signs or in co-occuring constructed action). She borrows for this purpose Arinka Okrent's criteria of context-dependency and meaning gradiency and Lindsay Ferrara's notions of ‘tell and show’ pairing and enactment.
Results of the first part of the research, which focuses on IS semiotic composition, indicate that IS lexicon is composed of fully lexical signs (63.6%), partly lexical signs (14.5%), and depicting signs (10.2%). Gestures (8.8%) and constructed action and dialogue (one of every twelve tokens) constitute the remaining IS nonlexical semiotic resources. An ID gloss database of the 200 most frequent lexical signs has been extracted, and their lexifier sign language identified (ASL, AUSLAN, WFD, Gestuno) thanks to five IS resources. The second part of the research tests IS and NSL comprehension on five video clips using five tests: subjective comprehensibility rating, lexical identification, depicting sign cluster identification, structured question interview, and retell task. Two video clips have been interpreted locally into each participant's NSL. The main results indicate quite low average comprehension of expository IS (56%) with a 30% average gap between IS and NSL comprehension. In this study, knowledge of foreign languages (at least ASL and English), travel with IS experience, and university-level education ensure actual expository IS comprehension (here, 6/32 participants). Failing these, linguistic access is therefore said to remain limited. As regards its lexifying choices and its under-measurement of enactments and context-dependency in both analyses, Understanding International Sign’s conclusions interestingly feed the pragmatics- and iconicity-related debate within sign linguistics.
In a context of globalization and linguistic endangerment at national level, the author finally most relevantly points out the possible sociopolitical implications of an increasing linguistic contact usage whose universality is more symbolic than effective. Her conclusions mention that IS phenomena develop in formal and informal contexts with specific conventionalization pressures that require continually renewed research in order to grasp both the evolution of their adaptive forms and the path of their grammar.
