Symmetry and children’s poetry in sign languages
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Marion Blondel
Abstract
Within the overall framework of research into properties common to poetic forms around the world, we concentrate here on the properties of symmetry and binarity. These two aspects of structure are general enough in nature to allow us to extend poetic analysis to Sign Languages (SLs), which are distinguished by their use of the visual-gestural modality. We show, via an analysis of children’s poetry in five SLs (Blondel, 2000) and a fable in Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) (Blondel, Miller & Parisot, 2006) that the structure of poetic signed discourse is based on principles of binary rhythm and spatial symmetry. Studying these structures demonstrates the utility of the syllabic-moraic model of movement in LSQ proposed in Miller (1997) and allows us to compare the relation between the poetic text and rhythm in oral nursery rhymes on one hand and, on the other, the relation between spatial and rhythmic properties in signed performances of children’s literature.
Abstract
Within the overall framework of research into properties common to poetic forms around the world, we concentrate here on the properties of symmetry and binarity. These two aspects of structure are general enough in nature to allow us to extend poetic analysis to Sign Languages (SLs), which are distinguished by their use of the visual-gestural modality. We show, via an analysis of children’s poetry in five SLs (Blondel, 2000) and a fable in Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) (Blondel, Miller & Parisot, 2006) that the structure of poetic signed discourse is based on principles of binary rhythm and spatial symmetry. Studying these structures demonstrates the utility of the syllabic-moraic model of movement in LSQ proposed in Miller (1997) and allows us to compare the relation between the poetic text and rhythm in oral nursery rhymes on one hand and, on the other, the relation between spatial and rhythmic properties in signed performances of children’s literature.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Acknowledgments xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Isochronous metrics
- Textsetting as constraint conflict 43
- Comparing musical textsetting in French and in English songs 63
- Bavarian Zwiefache 79
- Natural Versification in French and German counting-out rhymes 101
- Minimal chronometric forms 123
- Symmetry and children’s poetry in sign languages 143
-
Part II. Prosodic metrics
- Pairs and triplets 167
- Generative linguistics and Arabic metrics 193
- On the meter of Middle English alliterative verse 209
- The Russian Auden and the Russianness of Auden 229
- Towards a universal definition of the caesura 247
- Metrical alignment 267
- Rephrasing line-end restrictions 287
-
Part III. Para-metrical phenomena
- Pif paf poof 307
- The phonology of elision and metrical figures in Italian versification 325
-
Part IV. Macrostructural metrics
- Convention and parody in the rhyming of Tristan Corbière 337
- The metrics of Sephardic song 355
- A rule of metrical uniformity in old Hungarian poetry 371
- Metrical structure of the European sonnet 385
- Persons index 403
- Languages index 411
- Subjects index 415
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Acknowledgments xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Isochronous metrics
- Textsetting as constraint conflict 43
- Comparing musical textsetting in French and in English songs 63
- Bavarian Zwiefache 79
- Natural Versification in French and German counting-out rhymes 101
- Minimal chronometric forms 123
- Symmetry and children’s poetry in sign languages 143
-
Part II. Prosodic metrics
- Pairs and triplets 167
- Generative linguistics and Arabic metrics 193
- On the meter of Middle English alliterative verse 209
- The Russian Auden and the Russianness of Auden 229
- Towards a universal definition of the caesura 247
- Metrical alignment 267
- Rephrasing line-end restrictions 287
-
Part III. Para-metrical phenomena
- Pif paf poof 307
- The phonology of elision and metrical figures in Italian versification 325
-
Part IV. Macrostructural metrics
- Convention and parody in the rhyming of Tristan Corbière 337
- The metrics of Sephardic song 355
- A rule of metrical uniformity in old Hungarian poetry 371
- Metrical structure of the European sonnet 385
- Persons index 403
- Languages index 411
- Subjects index 415
