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THE
KISSFIST

On the rich humor of sign language.
Words by Ariel Baker-Gibbs. Photograph by Cecilie Jegsen.

  • Arts & Culture
  • Issue 46

On the rich humor of sign language.
Words by Ariel Baker-Gibbs. Photograph by Cecilie Jegsen.

According to pragmatics linguists, you tend to be around five or six years old when you start to understand that saying things opposite to the self-evident truth can be funny. Hearing people or people who use their voices automatically associate this with drawls, deadpan monotones or emphasized intonation. The same thing happens in sign language. Irony isn’t just auditory, after all—it’s also in facial expressions and body language. The face easily shows excessive excitement or flat affect, and equally common

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This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Six

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