In a discourse the social characteristics of the participants can be referred to by specific uses of deixis, which are called social deixis.
The possibility to encode social distinctions in LIS seems to be subject to some variation. According to some LIS signers, nothing changes in the signing production if a participant has a high social status. Other signers report that social distinctions can be conveyed by handshape change. In particular, honorific pronouns (LEXICON 3.7.2.6) can be marked by using the unspread 5 handshape rather than the G handshape, as displayed in the picture below.
Figure: Unspread 5 handshape used as honorific form
Below, we provide an example containing the honorific form ix(unspread 5)2.
Context: In a business company, the boss of the company enters the room where an employee is sitting. The employee stands up and signs the following sentence.
welcome sit ix(loc)a be_able ix(unspread 5)2
‘Please, come, you can have a seat there.’
Another type of strategy which may signal social distinctions is represented by specific uses of the signing space. Contrast between the upper and lower part of the frontal plane may be used to convey asymmetrical relationships, as for parent-child or boss-workers relationships (PRAGMATICS 8.1.2). To illustrate, we show in the video below the relation between a grandfather (localised higher in space) and his grandson (localised lower in space).
pietro ixa grandfather ix[up] ix[down] grandson ix3a
‘Pietro is the grandfather’s grandson.’