as we continue to discuss ASL semantics
it's worth taking a look particularly at the issue of space to see how rich space
is in it's ASL usage
first of all let's think about surrogacy remember surrogracy is a broad concept that
could use either direct dialogue when you're quoting people in roll shifting
and constructed action showing what something looked like particularly when
you're doing expansion techniques such as described then do surrogacy is really
the use of space it's acting out as if you were really there
so no it's not- you don't just simply say that a person looked drunk after
drinking five beers they looked like they were drunk
you also show which is a use of a what we used to call classifier now called
depicting verbs as well as the use of the whole body which is called constructed
action or surrogacy space is also used in order to refer back to people and
places and this is called the concept of token space
it's when this particular space on my right or my left or in front of me or
above me or whatever refers to something that's not really there
right so if i say that i use the preposition which we discussed there
which is you sort of like the word at at school at work at the mall the mall
isn't really over to my right over to my left
i mean it may be but it's not important whether it's actually there i'm referring to it
as if it were similarly when we use determiners like the boy or the car
we're referring to objects as if they were there and then we can refer back
repeatedly
we also see this in our verbs we see it in our depicting verbs where we use what we
call classifiers to show something is there
so if you say the car is there then i can point to the car the car drives by then
I can point to the car over there now
we use locative verbs to refer to space so i flied to that area whatever I set
up over there is where I fly to
and we use agreeing verbs or indicating verbs to refer to people if I know that
I've set Bob up over there then that means i give to Bob
this means he tells me something etc so token space is very important in ASL
because we use the space around us as if it referred to real space as if the
person really were there or the car really were there though they are not
now it's important to see that this is sort of a metaphor in the way that we
use space sometimes there is real space if Bob is standing right
there and I say I tell him
well then i am not using a token space or metaphorical space Bob's really there
but we use in ASL often token space as a way of referring to people that are not
present but also lots of metaphors that we just assume the listener understands
so i might discuss a trip that I've ben planning and I might talk about
Tennessee and Nebraska and Washington DC and I'm pointing in these areas
the person I'm talking to is going to understand that i have a map in
my mind or if I talk about use this sign which represents a person right it's a
depicting verb to represent a person moving down the list while i'm talking
about
I don't know topics in a classroom then it's understood that I'm speaking as if
we had an actual list of things to do and I'm moving down that list i may use
my hand to do that as well
there's no real list it's a metaphor we're speaking as if there were a list
there's no real map in front of them speaking as if there were
you'll see this with diagrams with visualizations of what things would look
like with relationships between people
you'll see suddenly people talking about their family tree and they'll talk about
their grandfather and grandmother and they got married and then and you'll see
them working out a family tree as if there really were one in front of them
this is called metaphorical use of space it's an extension of token space
because we're talking about things that are not there but we are assuming that the
person we're talking to understand whatever this metaphor is that we're
using sometimes we say it explicitly but most of the time we don't we just start
using it and we start referring to these pictures in our head and the people that
we're talking to are familiar with the same metaphors and so they know oh he's
speaking as if there were a map or as if there were a list or as if there were a
diagram, etc.