Tactile Signing with One-Handed Perception

Abstract

Tactile signing among persons with deaf-blindness is not homogenous; rather, like other forms of language, it exhibits variation, especially in turn taking. Early analyses of tactile Swedish Sign Language, tactile Norwegian Sign Language, and tactile French Sign Language focused on tactile communication with four hands, in which partially blind or functionally blind signers use both hands for production and perception in the conversation dyad. In this article, I add to this body of research by focusing on tactile one-handed perception in Swedish Sign Language, in which a signer uses the left hand to produce and receive signs, and an addressee uses the right hand not only to receive but also to produce signs after taking a turn. As part of this discussion, I also look at issues of conversation regulation, hand movement during the turn change, and variation in the backchannel signals. The study shows that in tactile signing, interlocutors must change hand position when taking turns.

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