Reformulation structures in French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) > French interpreting: A pilot multimodal study

This article examines reformulation structures when interpreting French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) into spoken French. Reformulation structures are defined as two segments of discourse, where the first segment conveys a message and the second segment, introduced by a marker, expresses the same message differently. By adopting a multimodal approach, interlingual reformulation structures (between the source and the target languages) and intralingual reformulation structures (within the target language) are described, focusing on their distribution, form, and semiotic composition. The dataset comprises dialogues produced by two LSFB signers and their interpretations into French by two LSFB–French interpreters. Interlingual and intralingual reformulation structures are present in French interpretations, although less frequently than in LSFB source dialogues. The most frequent forms of reformulation structures are found in both datasets. Interpreters do not seem to be influenced in their gesturing by the signs produced in the source LSFB dialogues. Still, they engage their hands, bodies, faces, and voices in their renditions. Hence, interpreters draw on all their available semiotic resources to convey meaning but differ from how source signers do it. In future research, the dataset should be enlarged and the type of manual gestures and nonmanual articulators used should be more closely investigated.