ii The meaning of space in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) Reference, specificity and structure in signed discourse Gemma Barberà Altimira TESI DOCTORAL UPF / 2012 DIRECTOR DE LA TESI Dr. Josep Quer (ICREA-UPF) Departament de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge iv Als meu pares, al Cesc i a les comunitats sordes d‟arreu. Cloc els ulls i sé que no hi ha res més bonic, quan aquest gest és sincer, que dar, cada ú, un xic. EULÀLIA RIBERA I LLONCH v Acknowledgments / / Agraïments Acknowledgments The point of departure of this journey may be found at different moments: when my neighbour told me about an association for deaf people in Sabadell where she was learning sign language and recommended me the book Le cri de la Mouette by Emmanuelle Laborit; when I started studying for my doctorate and enrolled in a course called L’estructura de les llengües naturals de signes taught by Josep Quer at the Universitat de Barcelona; or also when I started teaching sign language linguistics and working at the Catalan Federation for the Deaf. These three starting points led me to meet many people who, in some way or other, have influenced the path I have taken and shaped this adventure. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge them now. Josep Quer, my supervisor, is a wonderful linguist, as well as one of the nicest people I have ever met. He introduced me to sign language linguistics and has been on this path since the very beginning. He made me realise that when doing sign language linguistics, formal analyses can be much more interesting (and fun!) than doing WYSIWYG. I want to thank him for leaving me all the space I needed, for letting me wander with the data and for never pushing me in any specific direction, but for constantly reminding me that all the ideas must be well connected, while always thinking about new paths of research in such a positive way. As I said after my MA defence, I hope that this is only the beginning. Un milió de gràcies per tot el que has fet!! I want to thank Enric Vallduví for fuelling my interest in formal pragmatics from the very beginning of my doctoral fellowship. It is definitely a pity that I was not able to enjoy his comments more due to his administrative responsibilities. I am very grateful to the members of my committee for evaluating my work. Louise McNally, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach, Carlo Cecchetto, Carlo Geraci and Joana Rosselló, I appreciate your help very much. The GLiF friends and colleagues have always provided a very stimulating environment. I am grateful to have travelled on the same journey as Boban Arsenijević, Gemma Boleda, Stefan Bott, v Lisa Brunetti, Berit Gehrke, Mihajlo Ignatović, Maarten Jansen, Laia Mayol, Louise McNally, Josep Quer, Cristina Sánchez-Marco, and Alexandra Spalek, who have been such good colleagues and have always been ready to talk about linguistics while having funny burrells. Louise McNally helped me overcome many bottlenecks in the development of this thesis, and she always provided feedback and questions concerning the bigger picture, which I finally managed to understand. Gemma Boleda has always been ready to listen and to give very positive advice about the thesis and the research way of life in general. I want to thank Toni Badia for telling me about the possibility of applying for a PhD grant at UPF, and Cristina Gelpí for always sharing her positivism and strong energy around. Always ready to support me on all levels, Berit Gehrke and Alexandra Spalek were the perfect comrades from the very beginning of this journey and they deserve special credit. Berit was always ready to explain linguistic problems with which I was stuck with, help organise parts of this dissertation, listen to my existential doubts and organise barbecues and 80‟s movies night when I thought my social skills had started waning. Being very close to Alexandra and after our endless discussions, I managed to understand what formal linguistics and doing a PhD were about. If it hadn‟t been for them, I would never have reached my current level of understanding. And, most importantly, we wouldn‟t have our amazing blog! Danke schön, my friends!! Most of the last four years were shared with the LSC linguists at the UPF and at the UB, with whom we always travelled on the same thematic journey. Celia Alba, Delfina Aliaga, Santi Frigola, Guillem Massó, Marta Mosella, Josep Quer, Joana Rosselló, and Raquel Santiago, many thanks for every single discussion about LSC and sign language in general. You have also been the perfect fellow travellers around Marrakesh, Vitoria, Lille, London and Venice! Lali Ribera‟s dedication and enthusiasm for life is a model to me. Many thanks for letting me start this dissertation with one of your beautiful verses. And as if my work in Barcelona was not already interesting enough, the train I was riding took me to Nijmegen. I am more than glad to have chosen The Netherlands as a place for my research stay and to have met the SL crew there. Many thanks to Onno Crasborn, for vi being such a good host; Els van der Kooij, for lively discussions; Inge Zwitserlood, for endless discussions about classifiers; camarada Anna Safar, for warmly welcoming me to the RU; Martine Zwets, for our pen&paper&excel&koffie verkeerd meetings; Ellen Ormel, for the strong friendship that has remained; Yassine Nauta, Wim Emmerik, Johan Ros, and Sven Noben, for reminding me once more that language barriers are indeed a myth, and also Asli Özyürek, Connie de Vos, Lianne van Dijken and Richard Bank, for interesting conversations. I will never forget the good things I learned with you: how leuk a nice research atmosphere can be, how important the gezellig borrels are after a colloquium and how creative Sinterklaas presents can be! This research stay was a milestone in my journey which allowed me to strengthen my academic education by attending courses at the Radboud University, the Max Planck Institute and also at the UiL- OTS Utrecht. This journey also drove me to meet very interesting and funny people, with whom the research way of life became an even more exciting adventure. The Friday Skype conversations with Gen07 members (Brendan Costello, Javi Fernández, Guillem Massó, Marta Mosella, Rubén Nogueira, and Saúl Villameriel) will be unforgettable, not only because of the extremely interesting sign language linguistic topics we discussed, but also for all the funny noises we could hear behind our far away voices. The discussions about sign space with Javi were very illuminating. Eskerrik asko, Jabitxin! I‟ve never laughed as much as when discussing GB with Alexandra Spalek and Diana Barrachina during our late syntax tea parties. Gràcies, noies!! Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo have been my source of inspiration all along the way. Not only as long as linguistics is concerned, but their funny ideas, invented emoticons, chats and songs while riding a bike were priceless. Noies, de gran vull ser com vosaltres! Short trips within this journey allowed me to keep meeting interesting people here and elsewhere. Although I only crossed paths briefly with some people at conferences and workshops, they have remained as good sources of inspiration, and some of them as very good friends. Elena Benedicto, Karen Emmorey, Carlo Geraci, Annika Herrmann, Jana Hosemann, Vadim Kimmelman (who read previous drafts of parts of this work), Diane Lillo-Martin, Roland vii Pfau, Markus Steinbach, Henriette de Swart, Ronnie Wilbur, I am waiting for another chat with you all! Many other interesting friends have always been there to have fun, swap songs and exchange (crazy) ideas. Cristina Baus, Oriol Borrega, Txuss Martin, Teodora Mehotcheva, and Maria del Mar Vanrell, many thanks for making this path a more enjoyable route! I had the opportunity to present parts of this dissertation at different international conferences and workshops. I would like to thank the audiences for listening patiently to my (sometimes awkward) explanations and providing very interesting feedback. My doctoral fellowship, presentations at conferences and the four-month research stay were possible thanks to the Departament de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge, the URLING-2009SGR00763 grant, a BE-DGR travel grant from Generalitat de Catalunya, and the FFI2009-10492 project from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Finally, I thank Susi Bolós for being very helpful concerning bureaucratic issues over the last four years. Santi Frigola es la persona con quien más he aprendido sobre lengua de signos. No solo me has ayudado a entenderla y a analizarla mejor, sino también a bromear sobre la LSC y a ironizar con ella. Muchísimas gracias por la amistad que nos ha unido y por las muchas aventuras que hemos vivido a través de la LSC. Delfina Aliaga es también una excelente compañera de trabajo con quien puedes contar en cualquier momento, además de pasar un rato divertido. Estoy sumamente agradecida a mis amigos y colaboradores por su participación en las filmaciones del corpus y por dejarme utilizar sus signos para analizar bien la lengua. Os lo devuelvo en forma de tesis y espero que contribuya, de algún modo, a normalizar el tratamiento de la LSC como una lengua de pleno derecho y que repercuta positivamente en vuestros derechos lingüísticos y sociales que tanto os merecéis. Josep Boronat, Albert R. Casellas, Pepita Cedillo, Encarna Muñoz, Frank Vidiella, Santiago Frigola, Delfina Aliaga, ¡muchísimas gracias por todo! viii Quiero agradecer también a los amigos y compañeros de la FESOCA y del Cicle Formatiu Ceir por enseñarme tantas cosas sobre la LSC, que influyeron también enormemente en esta tesis: Albert R.