Signs of the Time: Selected Papers from TISLR 2004 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Signs of the Time: Selected Papers from TISLR 2004 Petra Eccarius (bio) Signs of the Time: Selected Papers from TISLR 2004, ed. Josep Quer (Seedorf, Germany: Signum, 2008, 404 pp., paperback with CD Rom, EUR 54.00, ISBN 978-3-936675-22-1) Signs of the Time represents a select number of the eighty-five papers and posters presented at the eighth conference of Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR 8), which was held at the University of Barcelona, Spain, in the fall of 2004. Like the conference itself, the book offers a broad sampling of the state of sign language linguistics at that time by dealing with a wide variety of topics and languages. To that end, it includes seventeen chapters (grouped into six main themes) and covers research on at least sixteen different sign languages from around the world. Here I summarize these seventeen chapters (organized by theme) and provide my overall impressions of the book. Phonetics and Phonology The book begins with three chapters that address various aspects of phonetics and phonology. In the first chapter, Mauk, Lindblom, and Meier discuss an experimental study of “undershoot” (the failure to reach a phonetic target) in American Sign Language (ASL) locations as a consequence of various signing speeds and phonetic contexts. Not only do they show that phonetic rate effects are similar in both spoken and signed modalities (despite differences in articulators), but their results also suggest that all phonemic locations are not created equally [End Page 275] with regard to phonetic coarticulation effects (specifically, undershoot), which is similar to what happens across different consonants in spoken languages. Finally, they demonstrate that similar methodologies can be used to study these types of effects in both modalities. In the second chapter, Rozelle presents a comparison of the phonological parameters of handshape and location based on the dictionaries of four unrelated sign languages (ASL, Korean Sign Language [KSL], New Zealand Sign Language [NZSL], and Finnish Sign Language [SVK]). To do this, she uses quantitative methodology, specifically, a combination of statistics and information theory. Her analysis not only shows some potentially universal dependencies between the parameters but also suggests that many of the supposed universals (e.g., the limitation of handshape markedness to locations at the face and neck vs. those on the torso; cf. Battison 1978) are actually language specific and/or typological. She also alludes to other possible dependency relations that could be tested using similar methodology. In the final chapter of this section, Tyrone and Woll offer a case study of a native signer of British Sign Language (BSL) with early-onset Parkinson’s disease. Comparisons with previous literature examined a wide variety of complicating factors (e.g., speech vs. sign, ASL vs. BSL, between stages of the disease/age, medication status, and whether the subject was a native language user). Their results support earlier findings that the primary effect of Parkinson’s on the production of signs is articulatory laxing. In addition, as a contribution to future work, they emphasize the need to consider and/or control for as many factors as possible before making generalizations about the effects of Parkinson’s (or other such diseases). Intonation The next two chapters address the interaction between intonation and grammar. First, Dachikovsky compares the forms of neutral and counterfactual conditionals in Israeli Sign Language (ISL). In this work, she argues for an intonational/pragmatic analysis of the specific nonmanuals that mark these conditionals (e.g., brow raise and eye squint) rather than an exclusively syntactic interpretation. She focuses instead on the general pragmatic functions of these nonmanuals throughout the language. [End Page 276] Next, using Wilbur’s (1994, 2002) analysis of blinks as linguistic markers of intonational/syntactic boundaries as a starting point, Sze analyzes data from Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) to see whether the same patterns hold true. She finds that Wilbur’s classifications are not adequate to explain all of the blinks found in the HKSL data and proposes a modification of that classification to account for the blinks in her data. She also takes a closer look at the methodological questions involved in the study of blinks (the phases of a blink and...