Iconicity: Transparent/Translucent/Arbitrary Signs

Question

Hi all! I am taking ASL 1 at my university, and we are asked to do a project about sign iconicity in ASL. We have to identify 5 each of transparent, translucent, and arbitrary signs and ask friends what they think the signs mean. I have a good handle on what transparent and arbitrary signs are, but I am struggling with examples of translucent signs and what that really means. I don't know how common these iconicity terms are in the d/Deaf community, but if anyone is familiar with iconic-translucent signs and could give me some examples/help I would greatly appreciate it! :) ​

Answer 1

Iconic signs are ones that depict the actual item being referred to (e.g., banana, door, book). For a hearing person it would be the easiest ones to learn and usually the ones that catch their attention because it 'fits perfectly'. I would venture to say that this would also include many classifiers because these recreate how the thing looks or moves (e.g., shaving your face would be with the X classifier on the face as you shave off the cream). An arbitrary sign would be one that does not resemble the item being referred to at all (e.g., who, where, when, why, how).

Answer 2

Thanks for this very good question.

A translucent sign means that the sign has moved somewhat away from the obvious gesture that motivated the sign originally. For example "TO-EAT" is a very transparent sign. It is based in the gesture of putting food in ones mouth and a naive observer would probably have no difficulty interpreting the meaning. TO-DRINK is equally transparent. However, the sign MILK is more translucent; that is, the motivated gesture of "milking a cow" is really lost in the execution of the sign today. The motivational/gestural representation of "milking a cow" becomes more obvious after one learns the meaning of the sign. At that point you can see the underlying gesture the sign is representing but on the surface as the sign is performed today it has moved away from the iconic gesture. Of course iconicity from transparent -to- opaque is a scale. Signs will be more or less transparent, translucent or opaque to any particular person depending on how much they know about sign language and how it works in general. So a sign may be "translucent" to one person and "transparent" to another. But for the general concepts this is how it works.

Another sign that is translucent is for example ATTRACTED-TO/FASCINATED-WITH. In the execution of this sign the person face is being literally "pulled toward an object or a person". On its surface the naive observer probably wouldn't guess at the meaning but once one is told the meaning, the motivation behind the original gesture can be understood more clearly (more transparently).

A sign like "TO-PLAY" in my view would be opaque. It is difficult to see any clear underlying motivation for the gesture.

I hope this helps with understanding the scale of iconicity from transparent to opaque with regard to signs.