Signing with your hands full

Abstract

Weak drop, or the optional deletion of the weak hand in two-handed signs, is a natural phenomenon occurring in a number of signed languages (Paligot, et al., 2016). In everyday conversations, users of a signed language have both their dominant hand and their weak hand at their disposal. However, situations, such as holding a drink, allow the use of only one hand. In these cases, weak drop is not an option but a must. The present study focuses on forced weak drop using elicited narratives, and the adaptations observed when one of the hands is otherwise occupied. Each of the seven participants in this study was filmed narrating a story from a children’s picture book first using both hands and then using one hand whilst the other held a cup of water. The resulting fourteen renditions were analysed and compared to other studies in the lilterature. Results show that many of the adaptations observed in the Maltese Sign Language (LSM) are similar to those found in other studies and that these adaptations are related to the modality rather than the language. It also appears that iconicity may have an effect on the adaptation of two-handed LSM signs into one-handed variants especially when weak drop is otherwise inhibited.