Native Signers Research Articles

Effects of Age-of-Acquisition on Proficiency in Polish Sign Language: Insights to the Critical Period Hypothesis.

This study focuses on the relationship between the age of acquisition of Polish Sign Language (PJM) by deaf individuals and their receptive language skills at the phonological, morphological and syntactic levels. Sixty Deaf signers of PJM were recruited into three equal groups (n = 20): (1) a group exposed to PJM from birth from their deaf parents; (2) a group of childhood learners of PJM, who reported learning PJM between 4 and 8 years; (3) a group of adolescent learners of PJM, who reported learning PJM between 9 and 13 years. The PJM Perception and Comprehension Test was used to assess three aspects of language processing: phonological, morphological and syntactic. Participants were asked to decide whether a series of signs and sentences were acceptable in PJM. Results show that the age of PJM acquisition has a significant impact on performance on this task. The earlier deaf people acquire PJM, the more likely they were to distinguish signs and sentences considered permissible and impermissible in PJM by native signers. Native signers had significantly greater accuracy on the phonological, morphological, and syntactic items than either the Childhood or the Adolescent signers. Further, the Childhood signers had significantly greater accuracy than the Adolescent signers on all three parts of the test. Comparing performance on specific structures targeted within each part of the test revealed that multi-channel signs and negative suffixes posed the greatest challenge for Adolescent signers relative to the Native signers. The above results provide evidence from a less-commonly studied signed language that the age of onset of first language acquisition affects ultimate outcomes in language acquisition across all levels of grammatical structure. In addition, this research corroborates prior studies demonstrating that the critical period is independent of language modality. Contrary to a common public health assumption that early exposure to language is less vital to signed than to spoken language development, the results of this study demonstrate that early exposure to a signed language promotes sensitivity to phonological, morphological and syntactic patterns in language.

The Causative-Inchoative Alternation and Age-of-Acquisition Effects on Multi-predicate Constructions in Turkish Sign Language

ABSTRACT We discuss the causative-inchoative alternation in Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili – TİD), and the age of acquisition effects on multi-predicate, complex constructions that are observed in both causative and inchoative events. We present a picture-description task performed by 24 adult signers, half of which were exposed to TİD from birth (native adult signers) and the other half after the age of 4 (late adult signers). The results show that (i) the causative-inchoative alternation in TİD is attested both as labile alternation and classifier alternation; (ii) there is no significant age of acquisition effects on the choice of alternation types; (iii) both causative and inchoative events have complex event structures that can be overtly expressed through multi-predicate, complex constructions; and (iv) late signers are less likely to produce multi-predicate, complex constructions than native signers. These results support the significance of deaf individuals’ early exposure to a sign language.

Searching for Signs: Developing a Handshape Taxonomy Based on Visual Similarity

Abstract When designing a sign language dictionary or lexical database, a criterion that needs to be decided on is how to organize handshapes in the search-by-sign interface. Although notation systems do exist for indexing and searching sign entries, dictionaries do not often use them. This study investigates how to classify and order images of handshapes without relying on the alphabetical order of handshape names or phonological parameters. For this purpose, a cluster analysis using three variables was applied, resulting in groups based on visual similarities between handshapes. The objects in the resulting clusters were reordered based on similarity and shape gradation principles, aiming for an optimal organization with regard to Prägnanz. Ultimately, as we expect native signers to rely on the visual features of signs, the taxonomy proposed in this study makes it possible to display handshapes in a way that requires fewer metalinguistic skills to support signers’ search actions.

EXPERIMENTAL IXODIDOSIS

Ixodid ticks are temporary ectoparasites. For complete saturation of the female, it takes from 6–8 days, while the body size increases up to 120 times. One female tick drinks up to 4 ml of blood. In a separate nosological group isolated ticks ixodidosis of cattle or tick-borne toxicosis. Young animals are especially vulnerable to the mass attack of ixodid ticks. During the summer period in areas of high attack by ixodid ticks, animals can lose up to 5 liters of blood, and the average daily loss of milk reaches 10 g and 4.8 g of body weight. The article describes the disorders of the body of cattle with experimentally modeled ixodidosis by ticks of the species Dermacentor reticulatus. The results of functional changes (body temperature, pulse, number of heart contractions, respiratory movements) were recorded. In 87% of cases, strong inflammatory reactions were not found in the places of attachment of ixodid ticks, however, in 13% of the animals there were signs of an inflammatory nature: slight swelling at the bite sites, redness and the release of droplets of blood and lymph, which, when dried, formed crusts. Based on the experiment, it was found that with a mass attack (50 female ixodid ticks and more) on cattle, a disease develops – ixodidosis, which manifests itself by significant functional changes during all days of observation.

Antologi Puisi Peluklah Aku Karya Frans Nadjira: Kajian Ekologi Sastra

This research uses the object of the poetry anthology Peluklah Aku which is studied from the point of view of literary ecology. The anthology of the poem Peluklah Aku is chosen as the object of research because in this book many symbols of nature are related to the study that the researcher is doing. The analysis in this study includes an analysis of the physical structure of poetry, an analysis of the inner structure of poetry, and the representation of nature contained in the anthology of the poem Peluklah Aku. The theory used is the literary ecology theory of Suwardi Endraswara and the structural theory of Herman Waluyo's poetry. The method used in collecting data is a literature study method with reading, listening, and note-taking techniques. The process of data analysis used the descriptive-analytical method with reading, listening, note-taking, and interpretation techniques. Presentation of data analysis using analytical descriptive techniques using a variety of scientific language, data analysis presentation techniques using a predetermined thesis writing format. Based on the analysis, the following findings were obtained. First, the poems that have been analyzed consist of different themes including the themes of social criticism, social protest, struggle, love, hope, messages, advice, death, and nostalgia. Second, the natural symbols used by the poet in his poems are not to give messages to protect the environment or related to the environment. Natural signs used by the poet in his poems are natural features that have similar characteristics to the situation or the message the poet wants to convey to the reader. This is done by the poet to disguise the true purpose and purpose of a poem being created.

Detecting Hazel Dormice in the UK: what are we missing?

Multiple techniques can be used to detect the presence of Hazel Dormice and as a result, there is reasonable confidence that lack of detection means that dormice are probably absent. In the UK, ancient woodlands are frequently considered as the reservoir of Hazel Dormouse populations and are a usual starting point for surveys. However, we present evidence that this may be one of the most difficult habitats in which to detect the species. This is largely due to many of these woodlands being unmanaged, with a poorly developed shrub layer due to heavy shading. This reduces the probability of finding natural field signs such as nests and chewed hazel nuts. Similarly, because detection devices (nest boxes, nest tubes and footprint tunnels) are typically positioned no more than two metres from the ground for ease of study, there is an assumption that Hazel Dormice will leave the dense canopy to use them. We predict that there is a higher risk of false negatives in this habitat type and that more research is needed to provide better certainty of detection when surveying in high canopy woodland.

Comparing Iconicity Trade-Offs in Cena and Libras during a Sign Language Production Task

Although classifier constructions generally aim for highly iconic depictions, like any other part of language they may be constrained by phonology. We compare utterances containing motion events between signers of Cena, an emerging rural sign language in Brazil, and Libras, the national sign language of Brazil, to investigate whether a difference in time-depth—a relevant factor in phonological reorganisation—influences trade-offs involving iconicity. First, we find that contrary to what may be expected, given that emerging sign languages exhibit great variation and favour highly iconic prototypes, Cena signers exhibit neither greater variation nor the use of more complex handshapes in classifier constructions. We also report a divergence from findings on Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) in how signers encode movement in a young language, showing that Cena signers tend to encode manner and path simultaneously, unlike NSL signers of comparable cohorts. Cena signers therefore pattern more like non-signing gesturers and signers of urban sign languages, including the Libras signers in our study. The study contributes an addition to the as-yet limited investigations into classifiers in emerging sign languages, demonstrating how different aspects of linguistic organisation, including phonology, can interact with classifier form.

KEARIFAN LOKAL MASYARAKAT NELAYAN DI KAMPUNG TALISAYAN KECAMATAN TALISAYAN KABUPATEN BERAU

The purposes of this research are to study the characteristics of fishing communities, to learn the values of local wisdom contained in fishing communities. The sample method that used in this research is purposive sampling which was taken from 20 respondents. This research used the descriptive qualitative analysis method. In simply, the fishing communities in Talisayan village have slightly different characteristics, such as they put the male family members first before women in their meal time. All the tribe members do the tradition Buang Naas to throw away all dangers and bad luck. They have to keep their attitude, especially from speaking harsh words. They also cannot go to the sea on Friday or they believe they could get in danger. There are also some other rules and prohibitions that they follow such as prohibition to catch endangered species fish, littering the sea, cutting down mangrove trees, use bomb to catch the fish which can causing damage to the ecosystem underwater, etc. Techniques and technologies used by the fishing community in Talisayanare they use natural signs to predict the condition of the sea andthey still usethe traditional fishing gear. In terms of practices and traditions that are still being carried out is the management of local institutions in the form of fishermen's social gathering and for those fishermen who violates the rules by using bombs or explosivesto catch fish will be reported to police officers. Talisayan fishing areas are moved according to natural conditions.

KEARIFAN LOKAL NELAYAN BAGAN SUKU BUGIS DALAM PEMANFAATAN SUMBERDAYA PERIKANAN DI DESA MUARA BADAK ILIR KECAMATAN MUARA BADAK KABUPATEN KUTAI KARTANEGARA

The purpose of this research is to study the characteristics of fishermen and forms of local wisdom practiced by the fishing community of the Bugis tribe in Muara Badak Ilir Village. The study was conducted for 7 months. The sampling method used in this study was a purposive sampling method with 7 respondents. Data were analyzed using qualitative descriptive methods.
 The results of the study illustrate that the fishing communities of Muara Badak Ilir Village are predominantly Bugis ethnicity, graduated from elementary school level, are Muslim, range in age from 50 to 70 years, and are generally small scale fishermen. Some local wisdom regarding Utilization of Fisheries Resources can be seen from (1) Abstinence and Belief: Beach Party (mappanre tasi), saying goodbye before catching, abstinence of reprimanding or greeting fishermen who will go to sea, returning home if there is something left to take to sea, not go to sea on Friday and don't go to sea when someone dies (2) Ethics and Rules: There are rules about prohibiting littering at sea, cutting mangrove trees freely (3). Engineering and Technology: take into account the condition of the sea with natural signs, the use of traditional or environmentally friendly fishing gear, the fisherman's departure time (4). Selective in choosing the type of catch, do not take catches such as turtles, diversification of fishery processing.
 Keywords: Local Wisdom of Bagan Fishermen, Bugis Etnic, Utilization of Fisheries Resources.

New Woman Ecologies: From Arts and Crafts to the Great War and Beyond, by Alicia Carroll

Reviewed by: New Woman Ecologies: From Arts and Crafts to the Great War and Beyond by Alicia Carroll Susan David Bernstein (bio) New Woman Ecologies: From Arts and Crafts to the Great War and Beyond, by Alicia Carroll; pp. xii + 242. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2019, $59.50, $29.50 paper. The New Woman of the late nineteenth century typically engages with city life and its opportunities for professional work in offices or, on the stage or the page, for social experimentation—like women living alone or loving each other. Alicia Carroll's New Woman Ecologies: From Arts and Crafts to the Great War and Beyond uncovers an array of women cultivating new ways of working and living together through the manual labor of alternative agriculture, often far from urban centers. Take, for example, Olive Cockerell and Helen Nussey's A French Garden in England: A Record of the Successes and Failures of a First Year of Intensive Culture (1909). The book details growing gardens throughout the year in raised beds along with the French companion planting of varieties of vegetables nestled together. Cockerell and Nussey celebrate homegrown produce in their "alternative agricultural experiment within a wider cultural and material exercise in growing local food in England" (61). Carroll claims that Cockerell and Nussey "apply the Arts and Crafts ideals of simplification and ecological interdependence to reinvent the material foundation of the rural household and shape a queer ecology based upon an ethic of partnership between professional women and the land" (23). Today this experiment in sustainability is a familiar paradigm, a practice opposing monocultural food production. Emphasizing the partnerships between Cockerell and Nussey and between the women and their environment, Carroll extols "this assemblage of human and more-than-human companions, along with their wills and appetites … a horizontal rather than vertical relationship" (64). This particular example, the crux of Carroll's second chapter, suggests a post-New-Woman garden utopia, along with drawings of their manual labor in action, of hands inserting seedlings into the soil, where "female partnership on the land and in the home" suggests "a new form of relationality" (75). Not only does Carroll extend "what we know about the New Woman on the ground as well as on the page" by exploring a range of women's work and art with plants, but she also opens up the "limited archive of British nature writing" (83). Cockerell's godmother was Octavia Hill, who promoted the urban open space movement, which is important to the backstory of what Carroll calls "the now often forgotten principle of early green socialism; 'England should feed her own people'" (1). Carroll's study combines the Woman Question with the Land Question to investigate the utopian "New Life" agricultural communities that women designed and practiced, and about which women wrote and made visual art (2). Beginning with late-Victorian New Women writers including Sarah Grand, George Egerton, and Mary de Morgan, Carroll shows the imbrication of plants and people in a green vision of English women environmentalists. With her interest in narratives that treasure "the ecological entanglements of all living things," Carroll relies on the new materialist perspectives of Stacy Alaimo and Jane Bennett (69). Alaimo's idea of "trans-corporeality" involves the interplay between organisms including humans, other animals, and plants, as well as toxic inorganic materials (5). Along with Alaimo's trans-corporeality, Carroll draws on Bennett's "entanglement" [End Page 161] of organic and inorganic materials (21), and especially the agency of plants and soil and climate as nonhuman "actants" (42). New Woman Ecologies joins in recent discussions of Victorian ecocriticism, as pioneered by Jesse Oak Taylor's field-defining The Sky of Our Manufacture: The London Fog in British Fiction from Dickens to Woolf (2016) and Elizabeth Hope Chang's Novel Cultivations: Plants in British Literature of the Global Nineteenth Century (2019); both are from the University of Virginia Press series "Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism," as is this project. Whereas Chang examines the global reach of plants through a framework of imperialism and the environment, and Taylor pursues urban pollution and the history of anthropogenic climate change, Carroll frames her...

How and When to Sign “Hey!” Socialization into Grammar in Z, a 1st Generation Family Sign Language from Mexico

“Z” is a young sign language developing in a family whose hearing members speak Tzotzil (Mayan). Three deaf siblings, together with an intervening hearing sister and a hearing niece, formed the original cohort of signing adults. A hearing son of the original signer became the first native signer of a second generation. Z provides evidence for a classic grammaticalization chain linking a sign requesting attention (HEY1) to a pragmatic turn-initiating particle (HEY2), which signals a new utterance or change of topic. Such an emergent grammatical particle linked to the pragmatic exigencies of communication is a primordial example of emergent grammar. The chapter presents the stages in the son’s language socialization and acquisition of HEY1 and HEY2, starting at 11 months, through his subsequent bilingual development in both Z and Tzotzil, jointly deploying other communicative modalities such as gaze and touch. It proposes a series of stages leading, by 4 years of age, to his understanding of the complex sequential structure that using the sign involves. Acquiring pragmatic signs such as HEY in Z demonstrates how the grammar of a language, including an emergent sign language, is built upon the practices of a language community and the basic expected parameters of local social life.

EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC AND MUNICIPAL SERVICES IN REGIONS: SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

The article examines the features and factors of the effectiveness of the present implementation of state and municipal services on the example of regional offices. At the federal and municipal levels, uniform patterns are manifested in the field of assistance of authorities to business entities. The author emphasizes that one of the factors that reduce the efficiency of state and municipal services is corruption practices. The article presents the results of a regional expert-analytical study, where representatives of business and government (Saratov, Volgograd, Ulyanovsk) acted as experts. The research goal is to identify and analyze the work of state and municipal authorities, barriers in the provision of services to entrepreneurs, including through the prism of corruption risks. The points of view and assessments of this work of experts - representatives of government bodies on the one hand and representatives of entrepreneurship on the other hand - are compared. Factors of increasing the efficiency of services of state and municipal authorities are analyzed and ranked: optimization of documents required for the provision of a service; strengthening the personal responsibility of officials for compliance with regulations; monitoring the quality and availability of services to entrepreneurs; imposition of sanctions for the lack of regulations and violations of service quality standards; reducing the number of grounds for refusing to provide services. The author notes the expert support for the requirement to personify the responsibility of officials for compliance with regulations as the main subjective factor and the basis for the effectiveness of government services. As the main barriers to the quality provision of the services under consideration, representatives of expert groups on the part of business and government name the classic signs of the corruption-generating nature of regulations: inconsistency and discrepancy between norms and the presence of gaps in legislation.

Culture is not destiny, for reading: highlighting variable routes to literacy within writing systems.

Cross-writing system research in psychology and cognitive neuroscience has yielded important findings regarding how a writing system's structure can influence the cognitive challenges of learning to read and the neural underpinnings of literacy. The current paper reviews these differences and extends the findings to demonstrate diversity in how skilled reading is accomplished within a single writing system, English. We argue that broad clusters of behavioral and neural patterns found across writing systems can also be found within subpopulations who display atypical routes to skilled English reading, subpopulations including Chinese-English bilinguals, deaf native signers, compensated readers, and distortion-sensitive readers. The patterns of interest include a tradeoff between the degree of reliance on phonological and morphological processing for skilled reading, a shift in attentional focus from smaller to larger orthographic units, and enhanced bilaterality of neural processing during word reading. Lastly, we consider how understanding atypical routes to reading may apply to other writing systems.

On the nature of role shift

Attitude role shift is a sign language strategy to report someone else’s utterance or thought. It has been analyzed either as a kind of demonstration or, alternatively, as a complex construction involving subordination plus a context-shifting operator. The present work reports the results of a sentence-to-picture matching task developed in three different sign languages (Italian Sign Language, French Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language) with the aim of providing experimental evidence about the nature of role shift. The task assessed the comprehension of indexical first-person pronouns in various syntactic contexts with and without role shift. We showed that constructions with role shift, which require context-shifting for the first-person pronoun, are never easier to comprehend than constructions without role shift that do not require context-shifting. In some cases, they are even more difficult. Additionally, we show that, in Italian Sign Language only, sentences in which the role shifted first-person pronoun is in object position are more difficult than sentences in which it is in subject position. We argue that this can be interpreted as an intervention effect and that this is an argument in favor of positing a context-shifting operator in the periphery of the role shift clause. Considering that the population of adult Deaf signers includes, besides native signers, a majority of individuals with a more or less severe delayed first language exposure, the second goal of this paper is to study the effects of age of exposure on comprehension of sentences with role shift. In the three languages under investigation, we found that native signers generally outperformed non-native signers in sentences with role shift and in subordinate clauses without role shift. This confirms that delayed language exposure has a lasting impact on adults’ comprehension of subordinate clauses of various degrees of complexity.

On the Reliability of the Notion of Native Signer and Its Risks.

Who is a native signer? Since around 95% of deaf infants are born into a hearing family, deaf signers are exposed to a sign language at various moments of their life, and not only from birth. Moreover, the linguistic input they are exposed to is not always a fully fledged natural sign language. In this situation, is the notion of native signer as someone exposed to language from birth of any use? We review the results of the first large-scale cross-linguistic investigation on the effects of age of exposure to sign language. This research involved about 45 Deaf adult signers in each of three sign languages (Catalan Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language). Across the three languages, participants were divided into three groups – those exposed from birth, those between 1 and 5 years of age, and those exposed between 6 and 15 years of age – and received a battery of tests designed for each language targeting various aspects of morphosyntactic competence. In particular, the tests focused on both those morphosyntactic phenomena that are known from the spoken language literature to be good detectors of language impairment or delay (i.e., wh-interrogatives and relative clauses) and on morphosyntactic phenomena that are sign language specific (i.e., role shift and directional verbs). The results showed a clear effect of being native, with significant differences across languages and tests between signers exposed to sign language from birth and those exposed in the 1st years of life. This confirms the life-long importance of language exposure from birth and the reliability of the notion of “nativeness”, at least for syntax. On the other hand, while in most domains the differences observed between populations might be differences in performance, for some specific constructions, signers belonging to the three groups may have different grammars. This latter finding challenges the generalized use of native signers’ grammar as the baseline for language description and language assessment.

Event-related potential correlates of visuo-tactile motion processing in congenitally deaf humans

The impact of congenital deafness on the development of vision has been investigated to a considerable degree. However, whether multisensory processing is affected by auditory deprivation has often remained largely overlooked. To fill this gap, we investigated the consequences of a profound auditory deprivation from birth on visuo-tactile processing. While the electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded, dynamic visuo-tactile stimuli with a congruent or an incongruent motion direction were presented to a group of congenitally deaf native signers (N = 21) and matched hearing controls (N = 21). Standard stimuli were moving continuously for 200 ms either upwards or downwards, whereas the motion of deviant stimuli was interrupted in one of the two modalities. Participants were asked to detect deviant stimuli, moving in a predefined direction while ignoring deviants moving in the non-target direction. Behaviorally, deaf individuals committed more false alarms than hearing controls in the incongruent condition, that is, they responded more often when deviants moved in the non-target motion direction. ERPs (140–164 ms) of the deaf group were more anteriorly distributed for the visuo-tactile stimulation in comparison to hearing controls. Moreover, visuo-tactile motion congruency effects emerged with a later latency in the deaf group (350–450 ms) than in the hearing control group (200–280 ms). These findings suggest altered selection strategies and neural correlates for visuo-tactile motion processing as a result of congenital deafness.

Knowledge of Oneself and of Others: Aquinas, Wittgenstein and Rembrandt☆

AbstractCurrent discussions of self‐knowledge focus on awareness of mental states, but a more ancient concern is with knowing one’s nature and with living well in light of that. Pursuit of this Socratic imperative has been associated with a tradition of self‐identification contributed to by Plato, Plotinus, Augustine and Descartes. Their ideas are distinguished and discussed, but another perspective is developed bringing together ideas from Aquinas and Wittgenstein: linking of the former’s understanding of propria and the latter’s account of criteria. The nation of natural signs is adverted to in relation to Reid suggesting a third component to this perspective.

The eye and the other: Language and ethics in deaf Nepal

AbstractThis article examines interactions between deaf and hearing people in Nepal that are conducted in natural sign, a mode of signed communication involving relatively small repertoires of conventional signs complemented by iconic and indexical strategies. Natural sign is an exemplary case for unpacking the claim that ethics is not only intrinsic to linguistic interaction but also grounds its very possibility. While this is ultimately true for all language use, natural sign heightens this quality and its consequences, in terms of both interaction (whether people understand) and analysis (how scholars understand whether people understand). Bringing together Nepali Sign Language users’ insights with academic theories of interaction, pragmatics, and semiotics, this article demonstrates the high stakes for deaf natural signers of being rendered intelligible or unintelligible by the “ordinary” ethical actions of their interlocutors.

Developmental experiences alter the temporal processing characteristics of the visual cortex: Evidence from deaf and hearing native signers.

To date, the extent to which early experience shapes the functional characteristics of neural circuits is still a matter of debate. In the present study, we tested whether congenital deafness and/or the acquisition of a sign language alter the temporal processing characteristics of the visual system. Moreover, we investigated whether, assuming cross-modal plasticity in deaf individuals, the temporal processing characteristics of possibly reorganised auditory areas resemble those of the visual cortex. Steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) were recorded in congenitally deaf native signers, hearing native signers, and hearing nonsigners. The luminance of the visual stimuli was periodically modulated at 12, 21, and 40 Hz. For hearing nonsigners, the optimal driving rate was 12 Hz. By contrast, for the group of hearing signers, the optimal driving rate was 12 and 21 Hz, whereas for the group of deaf signers, the optimal driving rate was 21 Hz. We did not observe evidence for cross-modal recruitment of auditory cortex in the group of deaf signers. These results suggest a higher preferred neural processing rate as a consequence of the acquisition of a sign language.

Predicting conversational turns: Signers' and nonsigners' sensitivity to language-specific and globally accessible cues

Precision turn-taking may constitute a crucial part of the human endowment for communication. If so, it should be implemented similarly across language modalities, as in signed vs. spoken language. Here, in the first experimental study of turn-end prediction in sign language, we find support for the idea that signed language, like spoken language, involves turn-type prediction and turn-end anticipation. In both cases, turns like questions that elicit specific responses accelerate anticipation. We also show remarkable cross-modality predictive capacity: nonsigners anticipate signed turn ends surprisingly well. Finally, we show that despite nonsigners' ability to intuitively predict signed turn ends, early native signers do it much better by using their access to linguistic signals (here, question markers). As shown in prior work, question formation facilitates prediction, and age of sign language acquisition affects accuracy. The study thus sheds light on the kinds of features that may facilitate turn-taking universally, and those that are language-specific.*