Indicating the body: Expression of body part terminology in American Sign Language

This article inventories and examines the articulation of body part terms in American Sign Language (ASL). The question of whether ASL primarily relies on the pointing gesture to refer to body parts underlies this investigation. Results indicate that the pointing gesture insufficiently captures the complexity of the human representation of the body. Through regular phonological contrasts, ASL encodes a systematic categorization of the body that is based on body part size, internal vs. external body parts, and proximal vs. distal body parts. Some body signs in ASL incorporate the 1-Hand handshape, which shares its form with that of the pointing gesture. Signers differentiate body part labels from the pointing gesture by reduplicating movement toward the indexed body part, mouthing the English body part term, or supplementing the index with the fingerspelled English term.