Strategies Of Nonmanuals In Sign Language Interpreting On Chinese TV

China has provided its Deaf citizens with signed news on TV as it imposes compulsory duty on national and local TV stations to air such programs, which are believed to be an access for Deaf people to the outside world. However, the quality of sign language interpreting (SLI) on TV is far from satisfying among Deaf audience. One of the problems that are frequently complained by Deaf viewers is the interpreter’s lack of nonmanuals, which have been proved to be of crucial grammatical importance in many sign languages. The literature, however, has few systematic studies on linguistic functions of nonmanuals in Chinese Sign Language (CSL).This thesis is designated to explore linguistic functions of mouth actions—nonmanuals on the lower face in CSL, with the purpose to put forward nonmanual strategies for improving the quality of SLI on TV.Building an annotated sample corpus of CSL on ELAN, a popular software in SL/SLI research abroad for research on nonmanuals, this study represents a pioneering effort in this particular field in China. Data collected from the corpus, including the occurrence rates of mouthings, lip positions, teeth, cheeks, etc., verify mouth as an active articulator in CSL. Linguistic functions of mouth actions are expounded on from the perspectives of phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. Specific examples from the sample corpus are included as illustrations for each function.Discussion on problems concerning interpreter’s nonmanuals on TV is followed by a comparison between interpretation on TV and Deaf suggested versions. Four news clips and their signed versions work as illustration on how to improve the quality of signed news through applying nonmanuals.