DGS-Video: The head for thinking, the eyes for seeing?

1 July 2023

The two speakers stand in front of their presentation slides and speak and gesture.

Photo: IDGS

Are signs from a particular semantic domain more frequently signed at a specific part of the body? For example, are signs related to cognition more often performed at the head? And signs related to seeing more often at the eyes?

Sarah Schwarzenberg and Annika Herrmann investigated these questions for German Sign Language. They presented their findings at the FEAST conference in June 2023 and also published them in an article.

The head for thinking, the eyes for seeing?

Video transcript:
Last June 2023, Annika Herrmann and I, Sarah Schwarzenberg, gave a presentation at the FEAST conference. In December 2023, we published an article about it. Now we would like to give a summary in DGS.

We investigated the question of whether there is a relationship between a semantic domain and the location of a sign. For example, whether signs in the semantic domain of cognition are performed at the head, or whether signs in the semantic domain of visual perception are performed at the eyes.

Research on other sign languages shows that this relationship exists for certain semantic domains. For example, signs in the semantic domain of cognition are more often performed at the head, while signs in the semantic domain of emotion are more often performed at the heart. This relationship is highly iconic. We would like to investigate this for DGS.

In order to investigate this relationship between a semantic domain and a location, we collected lexemes for both domains. We used various resources for this, such as dictionaries, online sources, and research on other sign languages. Once the lexemes had been collected, it was important to check that the semantic domain had been assigned correctly. This was verified using GermaNet. In GermaNet, words can be searched to obtain various information, for example, about the semantic domain. This allowed us to check for consistency. As a result, we obtained two lists. The list in the semantic domain of cognition comprises 45 signs, while the list in the semantic domain of visual perception comprises 55 signs. In the next step, these German lexemes were searched for in the DGS corpus. We found 90 signs in the semantic domain of cognition and 40 signs in the semantic domain of visual perception. We then noted the locations of the signs and evaluated them.

In the semantic area of cognition, we found that the forehead is the most common location, accounting for 42% of gestures. The second most common location is neutral sign space, followed by the head in third place. When all locations on and around the head are combined, i.e., the forehead, nose, head, etc., we found that 66% of signs are performed on the head.

In the area of visual perception, the most common locations are the eyes and neutral sign space, each with 20%. The head and nose follow in second place. When all locations near the eyes are combined, i.e., the eyes, nose, and cheeks, we found that 43% of all signs are performed in the upper half of the face.

As described for other sign languages, the relationship between the semantic domain of cognition and the location of the head is strong in DGS. However, the relationship between the semantic domain of visual perception and the location of the eyes is weaker. The relationship can be seen, but it extends more to the upper half of the face. One explanation for the weaker relationship could be that the eyes should not be blocked when signing, which is why signs are performed slightly lower down. Our results show that location in signs can be very iconic.