Sensory ecologies and semiotic assemblages during British Sign Language interpreted weather forecasts
Abstract
We present a study examining broadcast British Sign Language (BSL) interpreted weather forecasts. These are filmed against a green screen with a superimposed composite image broadcast including maps and satellite information, etc. that can be indexed. We examine the semiotic resources used when interacting with the available visible on-screen information to the viewing audiences. The forecasters and interpreters tailor their multimodal communicative practice to the sensory ecology (Kusters, 2017) of the audiences they serve. That is to say that, speakers/hearers hear the spoken monolingual linguistic resources while seeing the gestural resources of the forecaster ; BSL signers/watchers view the multilingual linguistic resources (both categorical and gradient) and co-sign gestural resources, subsequently watching the gestural resources of the forecaster and the interpreter -presenter. We identify that while similar gestural resources are used by the weather presenters and the in-vision interpreter-presenters, the temporal alignment of the semiotic assemblages (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2017) of linguistic and gestural resources are different. The assumed normative practices of the deaf audience appear to significantly contribute to the consecutive use of semiotic resources that we see presented in BSL by in-vision interpreter-presenters. In addition to simultaneous assemblages, favoured by the weather forecaster presenters, they also create consecutive semiotic assemblages.Citation
Stone, C. and Köhring, J. (2021) Sensory ecologies and semiotic assemblages during British Sign Language interpreted weather forecasts, International Journal of Multilingualism, 18(2), pp. 226-243, DOI: 10.1080/14790718.2020.1867149.Publisher
Taylor & FrancisJournal
International Journal of MultilingualismAdditional Links
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790718.2020.1867149Type
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Multilingualism on 11/01/2021, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2020.1867149 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.ISSN
1479-0718ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/14790718.2020.1867149
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