Abstract

Brdar, Mario & Rita, Brdar-Szabó. 2024. On cross-linguistic/cultural false friends in verbo-gestural communication: interlingual “homonyms” and “synonyms”. Sign Languages and Linguistics Convergence Research, 1(1), 122-160. The focus of this article is an understudied phenomenon as a factor that may diminish mutual intelligibility and also make translation across sign languages (i.e., trans-signing) more difficult. While the phenomenon of translator’s false friends has been widely studied in spoken and written language, it has not yet been paid due attention in teaching and learning of a foreign sign language, or in translation studies on sign languages, or simply in cross-sign-linguistic communication. We demonstrate in this article the existence of such false friends, i.e., putative interlingual synonyms that turn out to be interlingual homonyms. We also document the role of metonymy in their coming into existence.