BSL signers combine different semiotic strategies to negate clauses

Signers of Deaf community signed languages negate clauses via manual negating signs and/or non-manual movements such as headshakes. Several claims about the dominance of manual versus non-manual negation across signed languages have been made, mostly based on survey responses and elicited data. Here, we describe how clause negation was signalled in 420 clauses identified in dyadic conversations between 40 deaf signers of British Sign Language (BSL) documented in the BSL Corpus. Signers tended to use between two and three strategies to negate clauses, typically including one or more manual negating signs. Clause negation signalled via headshakes most often co-occurred with manual negating signs, mouthings of English negating forms, and/or conventionalised mouth gestures. Headshake-only clause negation was rare. Overall, corpus data suggests that BSL signers prefer to combine manual and non-manual strategies, especially headshakes and mouthings of English negating forms, when signalling clause negation. The exact manifestation depends on both discourse-pragmatic factors and socio-demographic factors such as region, age group, and BSL teaching experience. This investigation demonstrates how signed language corpus studies can further our understanding of signed language variation and linguistic diversity, while also supporting applied linguistic contexts such as language teaching.