Tracking referents in a signed camping story when a fingerspelled name is missed
You are watching a 3-minute NZSL video for an interpretive assessment. A Deaf storyteller describes a camping trip. At the start, she establishes three locations: tent on her left, river on her right, car behind her. She uses role shift to show a conversation between two campers. At 1:20 she fingerspells a name quickly: K-E-L-S-E-Y. You miss the middle letters because her hand moves toward her body. Later she points left to the tent, signs PERSON-LYING-DOWN, then SHIVER with a concerned face, eyebrows drawn together. At 2:10 she signs NEXT-MORNING, points behind her, then CAR NO START. You must answer comprehension questions without replaying the video. You have 45 seconds to write notes. What strategies do you use to work out who was shivering and what happened? You can only watch once. The signer does not repeat the name. Your notes must be in English. You remember the first letter K and last two letters E-Y.
1. Explain how you work out who was shivering despite missing the fingerspelled name. Include spatial tracking and non-manual cues.
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Track the locations the signer established: tent on her left, river on her right, car behind her. When she points left to the tent and signs PERSON-LYING-DOWN, she is placing the person inside the tent. The later SHIVER sign with a concerned face and drawn-together eyebrows shows that this person is cold and uncomfortable. The only name given is the fingerspelled K-E-L-S-E-Y. Even though you missed the middle letters, you have K and E-Y, and the later point to the tent plus the role-shifted conversation tells you this is the same camper. Use the partial spelling as a label, not a guess: write K---ey, then confirm with the spatial reference. The reasoning is that NZSL uses space to track referents, so a point to the tent reactivates the person located there; you do not need every fingerspelled letter if the spatial and non-manual cues are consistent.
2. What does the change in the signer's facial expression from neutral to concerned tell you, and how does it affect the meaning of SHIVER?
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In NZSL, non-manual signals carry grammatical and adverbial meaning, not just emotion. A neutral face with SHIVER might mean the person is shivering slightly. The concerned face, drawn-together eyebrows, and possibly a tense mouth change the meaning to shivering badly or being miserable and cold. That affects comprehension because the problem is not just a small detail: the camper is uncomfortable, which sets up the next morning's car problem. If you ignore the facial expression, you might miss the severity and the reason the story focuses on the tent. The reasoning is that you must read the face and body together with the sign, not treat the hands as the whole message.
3. List the sequence of events you would write in your notes, using the time markers and spatial references.
Read the worked answer
- Camping trip is set up: tent on the signer's left, river on her right, car behind her. 2. At 1:20, a camper whose name is fingerspelled K-E-L-S-E-Y is in the tent, lying down, shivering with a concerned face. 3. At 2:10, the time marker NEXT-MORNING shows a new day; the signer points behind her to the car and signs CAR NO START. 4. The implied problem is that they need to leave but the car will not start. The reasoning is that NEXT-MORNING is a time marker that orders the events, and the points to the established locations keep the referents clear. Role shift earlier showed a conversation between campers, so you know there are at least two people, but the shivering person is the one in the tent.