This article investigates the role of iconicity in International Sign Language (ISL), as used by interpreters for Deaf people at international conferences. In analyses of ISL, specific issues of iconicity (e.g., degree of abstractness, levels of application, competing motivations, and universality) are considered and applied to ISL data. The data…

This study seeks to understand American Sign Language (ASL) as heterogeneous communication and to use it as a model for developing in other modalities alternative heterogeneous communication systems with the same advantages. (26 references) (CK)

Identifies indicators of register or style in selected portions of two lectures presented in American Sign Language, and in the interpretations of each made by two interpreters. The indicators used are speaking rate, pausing, syntax, intonation, and lexical choice. Transcripts of data are included in Appendix. (Author/LMO)

The performance of two sign language interpreters in interpreting and transliterating two English texts in 1973 and again in 1985 was analyzed. Both interpreters significantly increased their use of four linguistic features of American Sign Language: classifiers; rhetorical questions; noun-adjective word order; and nonmanual negation. (Author/CB)