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Stefania Scafa * & Isabella Poggi ** *Dipartimento di Psicologia

The meaning of gaze in LIS (Lingua Italiana dei Segni). Stefania Scafa * & Isabella Poggi ** *Dipartimento di Psicologia Università di Roma “La Sapienza” **Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Educazione Università Roma Tre.

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Stefania Scafa * & Isabella Poggi ** *Dipartimento di Psicologia

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  1. The meaning of gaze in LIS (Lingua Italiana dei Segni) Stefania Scafa* & Isabella Poggi** *Dipartimento di Psicologia Università di Roma “La Sapienza” **Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Educazione Università Roma Tre

  2. Eye gaze has been investigated in many of its social and communicative functions expression of liking (Argyle and Cook, 1976) connection with greeting and flirting behavior (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1972; Collett & Contarello 1983; Kendon 1975) mother-infant contact (Trevarthen, 1984) exploration of the interlocutor's face (Kendon, 1967) turn-taking in conversation (Duncan 1974; Duncan & Fiske 1977) gaze in face-to-face interaction (Kendon, 1967, 1973; Kendon & Cook, 1969; Goodwin 1981) meanings of gaze (Poggi & Pelachaud 2004; Heylen 2005) uses of eyebrows (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1976; Ekman, 1979; Guaitella, Cavé & Santi, 1993; Costa & Ricci Bitti, 2003). gaze in Embodied Agents (Pelachaud & Prevost, 1994; Maatman, Gratch & Marsella)

  3. Within research on the Sign Languages of the Deaf, various scholars have early acknowledged the importance of nonmanual components in Signs(Baker & Padden, 1978; Baker-Schenk, 1985; Volterra, 1987), by highlighting the lexical, syntactic and pragmatic functions of mouth behaviours, facial expression, eyebrows and eye gaze. Also for gaze, its communicative and meta-communicative function has often been stressed, but a clear and systematic view of gaze communicative behaviour in Sign Languages, and of its difference from gaze in the hearings, is still lacking.

  4. In this work we compare some aspects of the communicative use of gaze in the Hearing to its use by the Deaf.

  5. Our starting point is a model of eye gaze (Poggi & Pelachaud, 2004) that views gaze as a communicative system, and as such endowed with both a lexicon and an alphabet. According to this model: • 1. • we can distinguish communicative from non-communicative uses of gaze – for example, in some cases we use gaze only to see or to look at something, while in other cases we use it for communicative purposes (say, to reproach one who stepped on our toe, or to allude to something we cannot mention). • 2. • in each item of communicative gaze we can distinguish • a. a signal – a particular configuration of features and movements of the eye region, and • b. a meaning – a particular set of information that is conveyed by that gaze.

  6. Poggi & Pelachaud (2004) have shown that the both the signal and the meaning part of gaze can be analysed and classified, just as phonemes and words can. On the signal side, any item of communicative gaze can be analysed into a number of formational parameters that are comparable to those found out by Stokoe (1978) for Sign Languages. Some relevant formational parameters of gaze are: eyebrow movements, eyelid openness, eye direction, pupil dilation, eye humidity…

  7. On the meaning side, a set of meanings that gaze can convey has been found out and classified. • According to Poggi (2003) all the possible meanings a Human may need to convey can be distinguished into three wide classes of meanings: • Information on the World (W) • Information on the Speaker’s Identity (ISP) • Information on the Speaker’s Mind (ISM) • All three types of meanings can be conveyed by specific items of gaze (Poggi & Pelachaud 2004)

  8. Meaning Type Meaning Gaze INFORMATION ABOUT THE WORLD REFERENCE : ENTITY I refer to that thing / person /event there eye direction to the referent, head direction to the interlocutor PREDIC-ATION PROPERTY small, little, difficult to see, understand, remember subtle (physically or conceptually) narrowing of eyes big, huge, great (also morally) very (superlative) open eyes wide Gaze items conveying Information on the Words

  9. GAZE MIND MARKERS: Gaze items providing Information about the Speaker’s Mind GAZE SIGNAL MEANING BELIEFS Degree of certainty Light frown Raised eyebrows with normal open eyes I’m serious in saying this I doubt it Meta-cognitive information Eyes down leftwards Eyes upwards Eyes shut Starting off into space I’m trying to remember I’m trying to make inferences I am concentrating I’m cutting myself off the interaction GOALS Performative Fixed stare I defy you Topic-comment Raised eyebrrows This is the comment Meta- discursive Raised eyesbrows Half-closed eyelids But, on the contrary I pass over this topic Meta- conversational Turn-taking Open eyes, gaze at interlocutor I ask for speaking turn Meta- conversational back-channel Close eyes frown I am following you I don't understand (I don't agree) EMOTIONS Inner eyebrows up bright eyes eyes down I am sad I feel enthusiasm I feel shame

  10. Gaze in LIS • This work analyses the linguistic and pertinent use of gaze in LIS (Lingua Italiana dei Segni). • Starting from the model of gaze drawn for the Italian hearing speakers, which found out the lexicon and the formational parameters of eye communication, the use of gaze by Italian deaf signers of LIS is analysed. • Our working hypothesis is that only a partial overlapping exists between the Hearings’ and the Deaf’s lexicons of gaze: a difference both in quantity and quality of the gaze lexical items respectively used. • In this view, we make the following predictions:

  11. To test our hypotheses about the differences between the use of gaze in the Hearings and the Deaf, we make the following predictions • 1. that the Deaf use communicative gaze more often than the Hearings do; • 2. that many items used by the Deaf have a different meaning from those of the Hearings, with a peculiar frequence, in the Deaf, of gaze items with a meta-communicative meaning. • .

  12. A research study comparing the Hearings’ and the Deaf’s gaze To test our hypotheses, four Deaf Signers of LIS and four Hearing Speakers of Italian were videotaped while telling the story of “The snowman” in their respective languages. All occurrences of gaze during the narrative were analysed in terms of their meanings and their formational parameters; systematic recurrent gaze behaviours were found out and lexical items of gaze were singled out and classified in terms of the semantic typology proposed for the Hearings' gaze. The frequency of the lexical items and their typology was compared in the data of the Deaf Signers and of the Hearing Speakers, and the differences in the communicative use of gaze in Signers and Speakers were singled out.

  13. Method Subjects: 4 young native deaf (2 male, 2 female), with deaf mother and deaf father, 4 young hearing (2 male, 2 female), 22 years old in the average, with hearing mother and father. The story is without words, only a sequence of drawings. The subject is asked to memorize the story in order to tell it to an interlocutor. The subject has all the time s/he needs. The subject tells the story to an interlocutor sitting in front of him/her. During the story telling the book is closed but the subject is allowed to open it if s/he forgot something, and then to close it again and continue the story telling. During the story telling subjects are videotaped by a Sony digital videorecorder. Each session lasts in the average 2.58 minutes for the Deaf subjects and 3.36 minutes for the Hearing subjects.

  14. Sara Hearing Ref. parallel words gaze description meaning meaning type gaze type 00.01 Questa è la storia di un bambino This is the story of a child Gaze to the interlocutor I’m talking to you ISM performative 00.02.0 Gaze down 00.03 che that Gaze to the interlocutor I’m trying to tell you something ISM 00.03.3 una mattina one morning Squeezes eyes, Gaze to interlocutor I precise ISM metadiscursive 00.04 mentre stava dormendo while he was sleeping Closes eyes I’m sleeping (He’s sleeping) W Action Iconic Gaze (Character’s Action imitation) 00.05 improvvisamente apre gli occhi suddenly open his eyes Gaze to interlocutor I’m waking up (he’s waking up) W Action Iconic Gaze (Character’s Action imitation) 00.06 …e ...and.. Gaze leftward I am rememberig ISM metacognitive A Fragment of the HEARING SUBJECT’s production

  15. Simona Deaf Ref. parallel sign gaze description meaning meaning type gaze type 00.01 One boy Gaze to Interlocutor. Eyebrows up I’m talking to you; It’s important ISM emphasis on the topic 00.01.05 He is sleeping Closes eyes I’m sleeping (He sleeps) W Action Iconic Gaze (Character’s Action imitation) 00.02 He rises up Eyelids half-close Gaze at interlocutor I’m waking up (He wakes up) W Action Iconic Gaze (Character’s Action Imitation) 00.02.03 There up to left Gaze upward right There is something up there W Object Deictic gaze A Fragment of the DEAF SUBJECT’s production

  16. Results The analysis of data shows that there is in fact a clear difference between deaf signers and hearing speakers in the communicative use of gaze. The first difference is in the density of communicative gaze items in the story telling by the deaf and by the hearing subjects, respectively. For example, in the first 40 seconds of story telling one hearing subject performs 35 items of gaze, while one deaf subject performs 61 The second difference is in the types of gaze that are more often performed by the hearing and the deaf subject

  17. RESULTS 40 seconds of Story telling Sara, hearing, 23 years old Simona, deaf, 23 years old

  18. Results Other more specific differences between communicative gaze in the deaf and the hearings are the following: As shown in the previous Table, the deaf subject, as against the hearing subject, performs a higher amount of gazes that mime the gaze of the Character in the story (11 vs. 1): this means that the deaf, different from the hearing, uses the device of impersonation much more than the hearing does. Thus, not only signs but also gaze items seem to use this device in the deaf. One more type of gaze that is typically used by deaf signers is one that we could call “metacommunicative gaze”: the signer while making a sign looks at her own hands, as if communicating to the Interlocutor: “it is here that you must look at”. This is different from a bare deictic gaze, that points to a (possibly) imaginary object in space: it is a gaze that points at a sign, to solicit the Interlocutor’s attention onto it, and comprehension of it qua sign.

  19. Conclusion The working hypothesis, that views only a partial overlapping between deafs’ and hearings’ gaze seems to be confirmed. The deaf show significant differences from the hearings in their communicative use of gaze.

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