The Roles of Manual and non-manual Cues in Recognizing Irony in Italian Sign Language

ABSTRACT

In a previous study, our research group investigated the expression of irony in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and suggested that specific manual and non-manual markers signaled the signer’s meaning and attitude. The present research aimed at expanding those findings by analyzing whether these markers are used in irony recognition and whether they are language-specific. We designed an experiment in which we compared recognition of ironic remarks out of context considering three groups of Italians: Deaf signers, hearing signers, and hearing non-signers. Our aim was to verify whether the manual and non-manual markers we associated with the expression of irony in LIS constitute a reliable cue to detect irony and whether these cues were accessible to signers more than to non-signers sharing the same cultural background. Although the ironic intent in LIS was accessible also to hearing non-signers, we found, among hearing participants, that knowledge of LIS does improve accuracy in recognizing ironic remarks in LIS. This suggests that signers’ facial expressions and bodily movements do not solve a purely affective function, but are grammaticalized, at least to some degree.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2022.2091443.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks are due to the Deaf and hearing informants who appeared in our experimental stimuli. We are also grateful to all participants who took part in the study. Moreover, we thank Chiara Calderone for her help in data collection. This research was supported by the SIGN-HUB project European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, Grant Agreement N° 693349.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ As discussed in Mantovan (2020), prolonged articulation typically affects the manual realization of signs, in particular the movement component (e.g., extended path movement, insertion of movement repetition, longer transition movement). It can thus be considered an analogue of the overall slower rate of speaking that characterize the ironic intonation in spoken languages.

² The two studies were carried out in the same period; therefore, we did not know in advance that the item was problematic.

³ LIS has not been a school subject until quite recently, when it was included in some Italian/LIS bilingual programs (Teruggi, 2003).