A STUDY OF REFERRING EXPRESSIONS IN MALAYSIAN SIGN LANGUAGE / BAHASA ISYARAT MALAYSIA (BIM)

Abstract

The research question of this paper is how referring expressions (REs) in Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia (BIM) change according to the availability/availability state of referents across the identification, re-identification and sustained identification phases of discourse. In order to study the distribution of the various RE types, namely nominal references, agreement verbs, constructed actions, classifiers, and indexing (IX), the sources include narratives produced by nine native BIM signers. The current study suggests that the reference type is nominal during the introduction phase, and there are many constructed actions and null forms in the maintenance phase as it improves the vividness of the narrative. The reintroduction phase involves pointing, nouns, and adjectives in order to repeat introduced entities that has been previously mentioned. The study also defines a mode of accessibility hierarchy of the BIM, and based on the accessibility of the referent, the REs are; nominals, classifiers, and IX. This research disambiguates the pragmatic framework of BIM and gives a definite idea regarding the special characteristic and language features of this sign language along with giving a model for analysis of any other sign language.