Structure Of Sign Language Research Articles

Indexing Gay Identities in American Sign Language

A sociolinguistic style consists of a set of linguistic resources that carry specific meaning within a social context (Campbell-Kibler 2011). One such resource is the use of phonetic variants that do not change the denotative meaning of a word, but are different enough to be recognized as unique. This type of socially constrained phonetic variation has frequently been dismissed as being outside the realm of phonology. In this study, I examine the feasibility of using social variation to inform phonological theory. I present a study of sociophonetic variation in men who identify as members of the Deaf and gay communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. I propose that a linguistic style employed by some Deaf gay men includes frequent use of distal joints in the articulation of signs. I show how analysis of this style can both enhance our understanding of the phonological structure of sign language and also demonstrate how models of phonology can accommodate sociolinguistic variation. By recasting social variation as a meaningful and informative aspect of phonology, we may better understand how we perceive, acquire, and use phonological structure.

The Linguistics of Sign Languages: An Introduction ed. by Anne Baker, et al.

The Linguistics of Sign Languages: An Introduction, edited by Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde, Roland Pfau, and Trude Schermer (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2016, 378 pages, hardbound [$149; ISBN: 9789027212306] and paperback [$54; ISBN: 9789027212313])THIS BOOK and its companion volume (A Concise Lexicon for Sign Linguistics, by Nijen Twilhaar and Beppie van den Bogaerde [Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2016]) are designed to serve as introductory textbooks to the linguistic study of sign languages. The Linguistics of Sign Languages is intended primarily for students of linguistics or those with some background in the field. In that respect it is unique. Introductory linguistics textbooks often include only brief to sign languages (and sometimes with a focus on research on apes). Textbooks designed for students of specific sign languages, on the other hand, concentrate mainly on a single sign language, such as ASL. Thus this book differs from existing linguistics textbooks on sign languages, which are designed chiefly for students in the field.The Linguistics of Sign Languages focuses on typology: similarities and differences among sign languages and between signed and spoken language. Each chapter is written by one or more of the authors, together with other sign language researchers in the Netherlands. Each chapter is followed by a summary, a test yourself section (e.g., in chapter 1, What is the difference between a gesture and a sign?), an assignments section (e.g., in chapter 4, Construct some short conversations in a sign language that you know that violate the maxims of quantity, quality, and relevance. Present these conversations to others, if possible, in your group and have them work out which maxims are violated.), and a references and further reading section, which summarizes research related to the chapter topic. There is also an associated website (https://benjamins.com/sites/z.199), which provides brief answers to the assignments, video clips of signed examples, a list of Web resources, and a number of references. The test yourself and assignments sections will be useful to those who are teaching from this book. The website is a welcome innovation, but it contains some infelicities, which I address later.The book comprises fourteen chapters, which are arranged in a somewhat unusual order for an introductory text: Topics such as acquisition and psycholinguistic processing precede any detailed description of sign language structure. Chapter 1, Sign Languages as Natural Languages, introduces sign language, sign languages, and their communities of users. Chapter 2, Psycholinguistics, includes a brief discussion of sign language and the brain and reviews the research studies on sign language production and comprehension. Chapter 3 discusses sign language acquisition in children, and chapter 4 deals with interaction and discourse. The next seven chapters cover the major linguistic areas: Chapter 5, constituents and word classes; chapter 6 and chapter 7, the syntax of simple sentences and complex sentences, respectively; chapter 8, the lexicon (including iconicity and lexicography); chapter 9, morphology; chapter 10, phonetics; and chapter 11, phonology. The final three chapters deal with sign language in its contexts of use. Chapter 12 discusses language variation and standardization, including both linguistic variation and policy issues; and chapter 13 delves into language contact and change. …

Descrevendo processos de formação de sinais em Libras em uma variedade de Belém do Pará

Este trabalho discute questões da Morfologia de Libras, a qual estuda a estrutura interna dos sinais e as regras que determinam a formação desses sinais. Alguns estudos sobre a estrutura morfológica e lexical das línguas de sinais constataram que a Libras apresenta um considerável número de processos que formam sinais, dentre as quais estão a derivação, a composição, a incorporação de numeral e a incorporação da negação. A partir do tratamento dado por Ferreira-Brito (1995), Quadros e Karnopp (2004) e Felipe (2006) aos processos formadores de sinais em Libras, o presente trabalho descreve a ocorrência de tais processos em sinais da variedade de Libras de Belém do Pará.

Perceptions of sign language among teachers in schools that enroll deaf children in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)

The study set out to establish and analyse how teachers in schools that enroll deaf children in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) perceived Sign language. A sample of 30 specialist and 30 mainstream teachers participated in the study which utilized descriptive and comparative survey designs. A Self-Designed Sign Language Perception Thematic Scale was used for data collection. The data were summarized into tables and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicated that teachers in schools that enroll deaf children in Bulawayo were aware that Sign language is the language for deaf children but perceived it as difficult to learn/teach and as a set of gestures which could only be used for expressing simple concrete ideas. The teachers were also not fully aware of the official status of Sign language. From the findings, it was also clear that the teachers did not appreciate the native and natural status of Sign language and were not sure whether it has its own proper grammatical structure which is adequate to express abstract ideas. A Chi-Square analysis confirmed these results but showed that despite findings to the contrary, specialist teachers perceived Sign language more positively than mainstream teachers. The main conclusion from these results was that deaf children in schools in Bulawayo were not exposed to the full linguistic structure of Sign language and were consequently denied development of their Deaf culture. This compromised their education. On these bases, the study recommended staff development of teachers, establishment of Sign language resource centers, and harmonization of policies with the new Constitution and a similar but in-depth study of a national magnitude.

Clausal coordination in Finnish Sign Language

This paper deals with the coordination of clauses in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). Building on conversational data, the paper first shows that linking in conjunctive coordination in FinSL is primarily asyndetic, whereas in adversative and disjunctive coordination FinSL prefers syndetic linking. Secondly, the paper investigates the nonmanual prosody of coordination: nonmanual activity is shown both to mark the juncture of the coordinand clauses and to draw their contours. Finally, the paper addresses certain forms of clausal coordination in FinSL that are sign language-specific. It is suggested that the sign language-specific properties of coordination are caused both by the fact that signers can use two manual articulators in the production of sentences and by the pervasive iconicity of sign language structure.

Discussion of the Relationship between the Form and Meaning of Sign Language Based on the Body Part Terms of Korean and Chinese

Through body part terms, the views of cognitive linguistics about the relationship between the form and the meaning of sign language were discussed in this paper. At first, there is no any difference in the common principle of structuralization between sign language and spoken language. Secondly, according to the principle of structuralization for sign language and spoken language, the two of them were connected and the form applied with materialization could be different, so the inter-linguistic difference exists. Thirdly, the relationship between the structure and meaning of sign language was motivated based on the cognitive filter of human beings.` Then, for sign language, performed by the body language, the performance form of inner and external parts were common in the cognitive pattern and other cognitive processings.

Rozwój kompetencji fonologicznych dzieci nabywających języki migowe

Deaf and hearing children of deaf parents acquire naturally sign language at the levels of phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics. In this article we describe the process of children’s sign development at the level of phonology. On the basis of the sign language structure theory of W. Stokoe, a pioneer researcher of sign linguistics, we distinguish three parameters acquired by children: location (place of articulation), hand configuration (shape of the hand) and movement (hand action). The acquisition of sign phonology is proceed according the rules, whose existence are approved by proper use of parameters and errors at the certain level of sign phonology development. In sign phonology acquisition we can find nonmarked parameters, which are earlier produced by children, distinct, less complex and most frequently occurring in adults utterances; and marked parameters which appear later in child development.

Constraints on Negative Prefixation in Polish Sign Language.

The aim of this article is to describe a negative prefix, NEG-, in Polish Sign Language (PJM) which appears to be indigenous to the language. This is of interest given the relative rarity of prefixes in sign languages. Prefixed PJM signs were analyzed on the basis of both a corpus of texts signed by 15 deaf PJM users who are either native or near-native signers, and material including a specified range of prefixed signs as demonstrated by native signers in dictionary form (i.e. signs produced in isolation, not as part of phrases or sentences). In order to define the morphological rules behind prefixation on both the phonological and morphological levels, native PJM users were consulted for their expertise. The research results can enrich models for describing processes of grammaticalization in the context of the visual-gestural modality that forms the basis for sign language structure.

The effect of sign language structure on complex word reading in Chinese deaf adolescents.

The present study was carried out to investigate whether sign language structure plays a role in the processing of complex words (i.e., derivational and compound words), in particular, the delay of complex word reading in deaf adolescents. Chinese deaf adolescents were found to respond faster to derivational words than to compound words for one-sign-structure words, but showed comparable performance for two-sign-structure words. For both derivational and compound words, response latencies to one-sign-structure words were shorter than to two-sign-structure words. These results provide strong evidence that the structure of sign language affects written word processing in Chinese. Additionally, differences between derivational and compound words in the one-sign-structure condition indicate that Chinese deaf adolescents acquire print morphological awareness. The results also showed that delayed word reading was found in derivational words with two signs (DW-2), compound words with one sign (CW-1), and compound words with two signs (CW-2), but not in derivational words with one sign (DW-1), with the delay being maximum in DW-2, medium in CW-2, and minimum in CW-1, suggesting that the structure of sign language has an impact on the delayed processing of Chinese written words in deaf adolescents. These results provide insight into the mechanisms about how sign language structure affects written word processing and its delayed processing relative to their hearing peers of the same age.

Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Sign Language Test Development: Results of an International Survey

Sign language test development is a relatively new field within sign linguistics, motivated by the practical need for assessment instruments to evaluate language development in different groups of learners (L1, L2). Due to the lack of research on the structure and acquisition of many sign languages, developing an assessment instrument poses methodological challenges to test developers. Existing sign language tests use information and communication technologies (ICT) to different degrees for test delivery, for example Web-based tests or an application that is installed locally on a computer's hard drive. In order to gain an overview of the state of the art with respect to the delivery of sign language tests and the advantages/disadvantages that test developers see in the usage of ICT related to sign language tests, an international survey was launched (N = 19). The survey was distributed using the online survey tool LimeSurvey. The results of this exploratory study provide a first overview of issues related to the usage of ICT for sign language test delivery and indicate that some issues are comparable to those faced by computer-/Web-delivered tests for spoken languages, whereas others are sign language specific. For the future more research is needed to explore the potentials and challenges of ICT for sign language test development.

From compensation to integration: Effects of the pro-tactile movement on the sublexical structure of Tactile American Sign Language

This article examines a divergence in the sublexical structure of Visual American Sign Language (VASL) and Tactile American Sign Language (TASL). My central claim is that TASL is a language, not just a relay for VASL. In order to make that case, I show how changes in the structure of interaction, driven by the aims of the “pro-tactile” social movement, contributed to a redistribution of complexity across grammatical sub-systems. I argue that these changes constitute a departure from the structure of VASL and the emergence of a new, tactile language. In doing so, I apprehend language emergence not as a “liberation” from context, but as a process of contextual integration.

There once was a verb

This dissertation presents two extensive case studies in the morpho-syntactic structure of American Sign Language (ASL) based on original fieldwork conducted with native, deaf signers.The first case study focuses on the structure of attributive and predicative POSS possessives. Based on language-internal diagnostics, this study shows that the possessive marker, POSS, functions as a verbal predicate of possession, not as a DP-internal marker of the possessive relation. The structure and interpretation of predicative POSS possessives are reduced to the interaction of the verbal POSS structure with two functional components of the predicative domain: (i) locative structure and (ii) licensing positions of definite objects. Attributive POSS possessives are derived as prenominal reduced relative clause modifiers formed from this underlying predicative structure. The second case study presented here addresses the structural uniformity and semantic ambiguity of two classes of deverbal nominals formed via reduplication in ASL: concrete object-denoting nominals and result-denoting nominals. Based on a morpho-semantic decomposition of verbal structure that is transparent in the surface form of verbal predicates in ASL, it is shown that nominalization via reduplication targets the lowest constituent of the verbal structure (VP-Res ). Nominalization of VP-Res yields the class of result-denoting nominals, while concrete object-denoting nominals are derived as relative clause structures headed by a nominal argument that is introduced by the classifier structure present in the relevant verbal forms.

The point of agreement

This paper reconsiders arguments suggesting that sign language analyses must proceed differently to take into account their gestural, iconic origins. Lillo-Martin & Meier (2011) argue that agreement is ‘person marking’, shown by directionality. Liddell (2003, 2011) argues that directional verbs move between locations associated with referents; given an infinite number of points, the forms of these verbs are unlistable, and therefore just gestural indicating; he claims that this makes sign languages different from spoken languages, a position that I will argue against. In their response, Lillo-Martin & Meier then agree that real-world referent locations are not part of grammar, so language must interface closely with the gestural system. In contrast, Quer (2011) argues that Liddell’s reasoning is flawed. I will present evidence to agree with Quer and argue that the linguistic discussion was prematurely derailed by noting the recent alternate analysis offered by Gökgöz (2013). There may well be a role for visual iconicity in relation to sign language structure, as demonstrated by Schlenker (2013a,b), but unless we pursue linguistic analysis further, we will never get a clear understanding of what that role is.

A REVIEW ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDONESIAN SIGN LANGUAGE RECOGNITION SYSTEM

Sign language is mainly employed by hearing-impaired people to communicate with each other. However, communication with normal people is a major handicap for them since normal people do not understand their sign language. Sign language recognition is needed for realizing a human oriented interactive system that can perform an interaction like normal communication. Sign language recognition basically uses two approaches: (1) computer vision-based gesture recognition, in which a camera is used as input and videos are captured in the form of video files stored before being processed using image processing; (2) approach based on sensor data, which is done by using a series of sensors that are integrated with gloves to get the motion features finger grooves and hand movements. Different of sign languages exist around the world, each with its own vocabulary and gestures. Some examples are American Sign Language (ASL), Chinese Sign Language (CSL), British Sign Language (BSL), Indonesian Sign Language (ISL) and so on. The structure of Indonesian Sign Language (ISL) is different from the sign language of other countries, in that words can be formed from the prefix and or suffix. In order to improve recognition accuracy, researchers use methods, such as the hidden Markov model, artificial neural networks and dynamic time warping. Effective algorithms for segmentation, matching the classification and pattern recognition have evolved. The main objective of this study is to review the sign language recognition methods in order to choose the best method for developing the Indonesian sign language recognition system.

Alignment of two languages: The spreading of mouthings in Sign Language of the Netherlands

Mouthings and mouth gestures are omnipresent in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Mouthings in NGT are mouth actions that have their origin in spoken Dutch, and are usually time aligned with the signs they co-occur with. Frequently, however, they spread over one or more adjacent signs, so that one mouthing co-occurs with multiple manual signs. We conducted a corpus study to explore how frequently this occurs in NGT and whether there is any sociolinguistic variation in the use of spreading. Further, we looked at the circumstances under which spreading occurs. Answers to these questions may give us insight into the prosodic structure of sign languages. We investigated a sample of the Corpus NGT containing 5929 mouthings by 46 participants. We found that spreading over an adjacent sign is independent of social factors. Further, mouthings that spread are longer than non-spreading mouthings, whether measured in syllables or in milliseconds. By using a relatively large amount of natural data, we succeeded in gaining more insight into the way mouth actions are utilised in sign languages.

Tegnsprogsforskning: Om tegnsprogets bidrag til viden om sprog

Even though research in sign language is a special field of language research it has contributed with new knowledge about human language because of the visuospatial nature. The article introduces to different issues in sign language research from a cognitive and neuropsychological view. These issues are sign language linguistic, sign aphasia, the neural organization of sign language, signed short-term memory, and the study of speech errors in sign language. The overall purpose of the article is to examine the structure and organization of sign language in comparison to oral language. What linguistics, neural and cognitive similarities and differences are there between signed and oral languages? The article demonstrates that the linguistic, cognitive and neural basis for signed languages overall is similar to oral languages. The similarity of signed and oral languages indicates an amodal cognitive organization of human language.

Can experience with co-speech gesture influence the prosody of a sign language? Sign language prosodic cues in bimodal bilinguals

In this paper the prosodic structure of American Sign Language (ASL) narratives is analyzed in deaf native signers (L1-D), hearing native signers (L1-H), and highly proficient hearing second language signers (L2-H). The results of this study show that the prosodic patterns used by these groups are associated both with their ASL language experience (L1 or L2) and with their hearing status (deaf or hearing), suggesting that experience using co-speech gesture (i.e. gesturing while speaking) may have some effect on the prosodic cues used by hearing signers, similar to the effects of the prosodic structure of an L1 on an L2.

Ideological Barriers to American Sign Language: Unpacking Linguistic Resistance

Although there have been significant advances in the status and use of ASL in the United States, there also have often been backlashes to such developments. The latter have typically been manifested in controversies over beliefs about the nature of ASL as a "real" or an "appropriate" language for study. This has been the case, for instance, in four particular areas: efforts to achieve official recognition of ASL, early identification of hearing impairment and ASL, the rise of ASL-English bilingual/bicultural education programs, and the teaching of ASL as a foreign language in educational institutions. In this article, the debate over the status of ASL is addressed as an example of ideological beliefs that impact linguistic judgments and policies. Also discussed are the major challenges to the status of ASL with respect to formal legislative recognition, its use as a medium of instruction, and its designation as a legitimate foreign language, all of which are both empirically and conceptually problematic. Further, it is suggested that the resistance to ASL is grounded in large part in a misunderstanding of the nature of human language and of the nature, structure, and history of natural sign languages in general and ASL in particular.

Sign Language Acquisition (review)

Reviewed by: Sign Language Acquisition Deborah Chen Pichler Sign Language Acquisition, ed. Anne Baker and Bencie Woll (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2008, 178 pp., hardcover, $120.00, ISBN 978-90-272-2244-2) This volume features a collection of papers published in 2005 as a special issue of Sign Language and Linguistics (8[1/2]). The papers originated from a workshop on acquisition hosted by the Inter-sign Network, an organization established to promote collaborative sign language linguistic research throughout Europe. In line with this mission, these papers cover a healthy variety of national sign languages (including Sign Language of the Netherlands/NGT, Finnish Sign Language/FinnSL, and British Sign Language/BSL) and address methodological issues relevant to data exchange and cross-linguistic research. These issues still pose formidable challenges in the field of sign language acquisition, a point that is acknowledged by all of the authors, who offer frank evaluations of specific practices in transcription, coding, and language assessment. In chapter 1 Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde, and Bencie Woll provide a helpful guide of best practices for designing and conducting sign language acquisition research projects. Their impressively comprehensive discussion presents various research design choices and variables to consider when selecting subjects. Next they deal with data collection and consider the pros and cons of spontaneous versus elicited data. They also offer very practical suggestions on how to position the video camera(s) during filming, how long to film, and how to minimize the effects of the researcher's presence on the production of the signers who are being filmed (the well-known "observer's paradox" [Labov 1972]). In addition, the authors address transcription and coding, areas in which fieldwide standards have traditionally been conspicuous [End Page 637] by their absence, greatly hampering collaboration among sign researchers. To explain this state of affairs, the authors list the many variables that researchers must consider when designing a transcription system: which levels of language data to transcribe and which units of analysis to choose, what software to use for creating transcripts, how to represent voicing or mouthing that accompanies signing, how to distinguish between early gesture and early signs, and how to gloss specific sign language structures. Throughout their discussion, the authors raise problematic issues and offer the solutions that their respective research teams adopted, but they do not promote one solution over another. Instead, they emphasize that different research questions invariably lead to various choices in transcription practice. The chapter concludes with a general timeline of the stages of sign language development, drawn from acquisition reports on ASL and several European sign languages. The authors warn that this timeline is still very preliminary and hence should not be regarded as in any way definitive; still, it provides a useful orientation to the reader and at the same time reminds us of how much work remains to be done in the area of sign language acquisition. Baker, van den Bogaerde, and Woll are painstakingly thorough in their discussion of the many features of data collection and transcription that researchers must consider before designing a sign acquisition project. Their thoroughness makes chapter 1 the most widely useful one in this volume. It would be even more helpful if it included mention of two developments highly relevant to the topic of transcription standardization. The first is the new sign phonetic notation system proposed by Johnson and Liddell (2011), which permits description of the formational properties of signs in exhaustive detail. Through testing and refining by many users, this system could conceivably become the sign equivalent of the IPA for spoken languages, filling a longstanding gap in the sign linguist's toolbox. Another fairly recent development involves the concept of ID-glosses, promoted by Johnston (2010) and others as a solution to the cumbersome variation in glossing conventions developed by different researchers for the same sign languages. For example, rather than using different glosses for EAT and FOOD, one can agree to use a single ID-gloss for all signs that are plausibly related to the same root sign (e.g., noun-verb pairs such as FOOD [End Page 638] and EAT, as well as morphological variations such as EAT[continuous] and EAT[unrealized inceptive...

A common neural system is activated in hearing non-signers to process French Sign language and spoken French

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the areas activated by signed narratives in non-signing subjects naïve to sign language (SL) and compared it to the activation obtained when hearing speech in their mother tongue. A subset of left hemisphere (LH) language areas activated when participants watched an audio-visual narrative in their mother tongue was activated when they observed a signed narrative. The inferior frontal (IFG) and precentral (Prec) gyri, the posterior parts of the planum temporale (pPT) and of the superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and the occipito-temporal junction (OTJ) were activated by both languages. The activity of these regions was not related to the presence of communicative intent because no such changes were observed when the non-signers watched a muted video of a spoken narrative. Recruitment was also not triggered by the linguistic structure of SL, because the areas, except pPT, were not activated when subjects listened to an unknown spoken language. The comparison of brain reactivity for spoken and sign languages shows that SL has a special status in the brain compared to speech; in contrast to unknown oral language, the neural correlates of SL overlap LH speech comprehension areas in non-signers. These results support the idea that strong relationships exist between areas involved in human action observation and language, suggesting that the observation of hand gestures have shaped the lexico-semantic language areas as proposed by the motor theory of speech. As a whole, the present results support the theory of a gestural origin of language.