What is Depiction?

Many deaf people, signed language instructors, interpreters, and linguists are familiar with the different ways signers use their bodies, hands, face, and space to represent different things. Roleshifting, constructed dialogue, constructed action, and classifier predicates are well-known terms that describe such representations.

In our view, all of these ways of representing involves a cognitive process that integrates counterparts of different conceptual spaces. For example, in roleshifting, there is an integration of the signer with an animate counterpart in the event being described, resulting in a visible, "here and now" element within discourse. This is one type of depiction.

Any instance of depiction within signed language discourse makes use of one or more elements within the signer's conception of the immediate environment for purposes of iconic representation. These include:

• portions of the empty physical space
• the immediate setting
• the signer's vantage point
• temporality
• the signer's self
• the signer's body and its partitionable zones

Most of these components are recruited to perform roleshifting. Because the signer can select a combination or even just one of these components, different types of depiction in addition to roleshifting are produced within signed language discourse. Dudis 2007 (pdf) describes some of these types.