Saturday First Session
Reframing Depiction: Construction Action, Dialogue, Surrogation and the like
0.4 PS CEUs
Level of prior knowledge required.  Little to none

*Workshop will be presented in ASL*

Metzger (1995) observed in the early days of sign language linguistic research that, “there seems to be general agreement that signers use their body, head, and eye gaze to report the actions, thoughts, words, and expressions of characters within the discourse” (p. 256). However, these bodily actions didn’t come with a standardized name. Some called them gestures, pantomime, and role shifting, among other things. Metzger (1995) settled on the term constructed action due to Tannen’s 1986 typology of constructed actions and dialogues. 

Constructed actions are the perceived actions that one attempts to recreate in space, however, they also may be fabricated actions from the signer’s mind. Nevertheless, the actions are construed in the signer’s mind for encoding using constructed action.

Dialogue is a type of constructed action, and surrogation is often used as a more general term for both. But does the body always report actions? Or is there another layer involved? This workshop is designed to demonstrate the body’s role in ASL depiction. In addition, useful techniques will be proposed to answer such questions as: who should be surrogated, what are the types of surrogation, and how does personification play a role? 

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1pm  to 5pm

Saturday Second Session
Classifier/depicting verbs reduced to three, possibly one.
0.4 PS CEUs
Level of prior knowledge required. Some

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*Workshop will be presented in ASL*

How many classifiers/depicting verbs are there? Would you be surprised to know the list of classifiers can be simplified to only three different types? How do they work? What is going on in people’s minds when they use them? Will I ever learn how to use them!? Come and see a different approach to classifiers using a cognitive linguistics approach to understand the conceptual structures that give rise to classifier use in American Sign Language. Within this workshop focus will be given to Whole Entity constructions and how location, manner, and path are combined to construct depicting verbs. Instrument depicting verbs and Size and Shape Specifiers differ from whole entity depicting verbs.

But how? One cognitive explanation can be found in what they foreground and what they background. How are these units stored in the lexicon and how are they made? In answering this question we will again turn to a cognitive explanation and will discuss one such proposal, the Analogue Building Model. In addition, we will study the body’s role with instrument classifiers constructions and how embodied experiences motivate these. Finally, we will also discuss how SaSS constructions also work with whole entity depicting verbs and how their progression through space illuminates how we perceive objects in the physical world. Analyzing how linguistic units and the conceptual perception of the world are related can help elucidate how and when to employ these items in our daily lives.

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8am to 12pm

Sunday First Session
Space walk: Working proposal for tracking and using depictive space.
0.4 PS CEUs 
Level of prior knowledge required.  Some

*Workshop presented in ASL*

There is a tool that can help guide interpreters to efficiently arrange visual concepts to make the most of their space: spatial frames. A major difference between English and ASL is that ASL uses space and kinetics in a 3-dimensional manifestation. Proper use of spatial frames allows for clearer depiction of comparisons and complex relationships. Instead of only using body shifting or static listings which can limit detail and depictions, spatial frames allow discrete and simultaneous creation of visual images with extensive detail without cluttering the visual field.

For example: An individual describes three houses she is considering buying. In the course of discussion, she lists details such as the locations of the houses, what each house looks like, and the pros and cons of each house. Creating three distinct spatial frames provides generous space for descriptive detail and allows for additions if the speaker retroactively adds them in future utterances.

This workshop introduces the concept of space frames with real world application on how to create and then transition between frames. Participants practice special techniques and guidelines to enhance their language use, applying a practical rubric to organize their thoughts and make the best use of their space.

1pm  to 5pm
Sunday Second Session
Depiction in Interpreting, How and When?
0.4 PS CEUs
Level of prior knowledge required.  Some

*Workshop presented in ASL*

Participants should be familiar with the following concepts, as only a refresher will be provided: constructed action, classifiers, partitioning, unrealized inceptives, and indicating verbs. This session bring these aspects together for working and aspiring interpreters. This workshop presents the view that English linguistic items and structures evoke conceptual content that can guide interpretation. Once we see these structures and how they symbolize meaning as they are derived from conceptualization, the depiction options narrow to a more suitable list. Construal will be of paramount importance and will be discussed at length with detailed attention given to cognitive semantics. For example, these four sentences evoke three different scenes:

The farmer caught the rabbit

The rabbit was caught by the former

The rabbit was caught

I saw the farmer catch the rabbit 

All four of these structures can inform how we construct our interpretation. Simply examining the vantage point they provide can narrow the options of who to become (constructed action/surrogate). Examining these constructions in terms of passive vs. active voice can also guide our options. 

When interpreters internalize how structures in language evoke not only conceptual content, but also a specific way of viewing said content (the construal), the method of depicting the construal will become more apparent. Workshop participants will first work sentence by sentence to examine structures in source messages, discuss the options to depict, and then reexamine all structures to constrict the available options in order to construct a truly equivalent target message