Conférencier : Terry Janzen (Université de Manitoba)

Date : le mardi 30 janvier, de 12 h 45 à 13 h 45 

Titre : When the past is in front of you: Revisiting past spaces in American Sign Language

Résumé : There is a longstanding notion in ASL linguistics and pedagogy of a “time line” that stretches from the past as behind the signer to the future well in front of the signer. Individual time signs are seen as following this spatially-oriented frame: signs representing past times tend to move backwards, and signs representing the future move forwards, from the orientation of the signer. But if the past is conceptualized as behind the signer, what happens in narrative sequences when the signer elaborates on past events? It appears, according to a small corpus of ASL discourse that includes a number of narrative passages, that the past is represented in the space directly in front of the signer. This talk discusses, and attempts to reconcile, these two differential spaces for past events.