Visual-gestural Modality Research Articles

Building the tower of Babel: International Sign, linguistic commensuration, and moral orientation

AbstractThis article examines International Sign (IS), a mode of signed cross-linguistic communication, in the context of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). I contend that the WFD General Assembly's language policy, which bans interpreters and requires that delegates use IS, formalizes the commonsense deaf notion that what is particular about deaf people is their capacity for connecting across differences, rooted in and materialized through the ability to use sign across language boundaries. While such an ability has been explained primarily in terms of the affordances of the visual-gestural modality, this article foregrounds and theorizes the irreducibly relational dimensions of linguistic commensuration. I argue that communicating in IS relies on and produces mutual moral orientation among signers, and that ultimately, it is the labor involved in using IS that deaf people value and that the WFD General Assembly institutionalizes. (International Sign, sign language, deaf, linguistic commensuration, moral orientation)*

A quantitative analysis of sign lengthening in American Sign Language

In spoken languages, disfluent speech, narrative effects, discourse information, and phrase position may influence the lengthening of segments beyond their typical duration. In sign languages, however, the primary use of the visual-gestural modality results in articulatory differences not expressed in spoken languages. This paper looks at sign lengthening in American Sign Language (ASL). Comparing two retellings of the Pear Story narrative from five signers, three primary lengthening mechanisms were identified: elongation, repetition, and deceleration. These mechanisms allow signers to incorporate lengthening into signs which may benefit from decelerated language production due to high information load or complex articulatory processes. Using a mixed effects model, significant differences in duration were found between (i) non-conventionalized forms vs. lexical signs, (ii) signs produced during role shift vs. non-role shift, (iii) signs in phrase-final/initial vs. phrase-medial position, (iv) new vs. given information, and (v) (non-disordered) disfluent signing vs. non-disfluent signing. These results provide insights into duration effects caused by information load and articulatory processes in ASL.

The visual-gestural modality and beyond

The article analyses cross-modal language contact between signed and spoken languages with special reference to the Irish Deaf community. This is exemplified by an examination of the phenomenon of mouthings in Irish Sign Language including its origins, dynamics, forms and functions. Initially, the setup of language contact with respect to Deaf communities and the sociolinguistics of the Irish Deaf community are discussed, and in the main part the article analyses elicited data in the form of personal stories by twelve native signers from the Republic of Ireland. The major aim of the investigation is to determine whether mouthings are yet fully integrated into ISL and if so, whether this integration has ultimately caused language change. Finally, it is asked whether traditional sociolinguistic frameworks of language contact can actually tackle issues of cross-modal language contact occurring between signed and spoken languages.

Legal Pathways to the Recognition of Sign Languages: A Comparison of the Catalan and Spanish Sign Language Acts

In some European countries, indirect or partial legal recognition of sign languages (SLs) has been granted in the last few decades through specific policies on deaf education, SL interpreting, or public media, but, in general, full legal recognition by dedicated laws has not been achieved. I present and analyze the recent legal initiatives for SLs in Spain (2007) and Catalonia (2006, 2010) (Spanish and Catalan SLs, respectively). They are shown to exemplify two different approaches to the reality of minority languages in the visual-gestural modality: The former act formulates SL recognition as part of the regulation of the accessibility means for deaf people, both signers and nonsigners; the latter regulates Catalan SL instead, leaving accessibility issues for deaf people for regulation by a separate bill.

Ikonizität und Indexikalität im gebärdensprachlichen Lexikon – Zur Typologie sprachlicher Zeichen

Abstract The paper deals with the iconic and indexical relations of lexical signs in German Sign Language (DGS). It is argued that the theory of signs as established by Charles S. Peirce is particular fruitful with respect to the description and classification of signs in the visual-gestural modality, but also needs some additional discussion on the nature of the relation between sign and reference object. As will be demonstrated, motivated signs in German Sign Language are more complex with respect to indexicality and iconicity as is recognized in contemporary research. Accordingly, the paper discusses the necessity to modify the typology of linguistic signs with respect to sign languages. It will be demonstrated that there has to be established a class of schematic signs within the group of hypoicons. Secondly, it is argued that DGS has a class of motivated but non-iconic signs, which show a designative-indexical relation which relates to the spoken or written form of a word of the oral contact language German. In sum, a modified typology of lexical signs is established which not only includes the sign types symbol, index and (image)icon but also the new types schematic icon and indicator (‘Hinweis’).

The Form of Children's Early Signs: Iconic or Motoric Determinants?

The two major language modalities—the visual-gestural modality of sign and the oral-aural modality of speech—offer different resources to the infant word learner and impose differing constraints on the infant's production of lexical items. For example, the attraction of iconicity to signing children could be such that their errors would reveal little role for biomechanical factors analogous to those that constrain early speech production. The earliest ASL signs of four deaf infants, aged 8 to 17 months, are examined. Three studies of a corpus of 632 early sign tokens are reported. The first study examined the effects of children's errors on the iconicity of the target signs. Children's signs were—with few exceptions—judged to be either as iconic (or noniconic) as the adult model or to be less iconic than the adult model. The second and third studies examined two independently-attested tendencies from general motor development: in many motor domains (including speech), infants exhibit repetitive movement patterns; infants may also proximalize movement vis-à-vis what would be expected from adults. Both tendencies are shown to predict error patterns found in the early sign data.

Las unidades del análisis lingüístico en la modalidad viso-gestual

La lengua de señas colombiana (LSC), una lengua natural producida en la modalidad viso-gestual y usada por un número considerable de personas sordas en Colombia, se está utilizando cada vez más en programas educativos bilingües y biculturales por todo el país. El objetivo de este artículo es determinar la unidad de análisis lingüístico más adecuada para un trabajo de planificación lingüística en curso, cuyo propósito es descubrir las relaciones entre la léxico-gramática y las funciones del lenguaje académico en LSC. Primero, se presenta el estado de la cuestión, con énfasis en las dificultades que supone el aún escaso trabajo en el análisis del discurso de la comunicación cara a cara. Luego se discuten varias propuestas hechas tanto para las lenguas orales como para las lenguas de señas y se seleccionan tres de ellas como las más prometedoras: el “complejo de cláusulas” de Halliday (1989, 2004a) y, en menor medida, la C-unit de Biber et al. (1999) y la T-unit de Hunt (1965). El artículo termina con la explicación de las ventajas de la utilización de cada una de las unidades seleccionadas en el análisis de las lenguas de señas.

Can constructed action be considered obligatory?

A communicative device that a signer can take advantage of in the visual–gestural modality is the use of the signer's body to depict the actions and movements of an object—whether that object be animate or inanimate. This communicative device (referred to within this abstract as becoming the object) is used frequently in signed narratives, but it also appears in other genres of signing. Whether or not becoming the object is dependent on the use of traditional linguistic devices (e.g., signs, so-called “classifier” constructions, word order structures, etc.) is open to question, so its role as a necessary part of ASL or any signed language may be the source of debate. This study seeks to explore the degree to which becoming the object is obligatory. To that end, production and judgment data are discussed, and it is suggested that specific examples of becoming the object appear to be obligatory for the depiction of some actions of animate objects. Further, commonly used alternative strategies to becoming the object are also discussed. The overall findings suggest that some instantiations of becoming the object can be considered obligatory in some contexts—especially for some signers. Implications of these results are discussed, especially as they concern the use of mimetic versus linguistic representations within both modalities—sign and speech.

Notation Systems for Reading and Writing Sign Language

Without written forms, signed languages do not permit the type of textual record available to speakers of English and other written languages. Deaf signers have generally relied on the language of the dominant hearing culture for this purpose. Because of their visual-gestural modality, signed languages present a unique set of challenges for developing written forms. These issues are considered from a behavioral perspective, and two sign language notation systems, Stokoe Notation and Sutton SignWriting, are described.

L'adquisició infantil de les llengües de signes

This article offers an overview of research in sign language acquisition by children, mostly in American Sign Language. The results indicate that the developmental milestones and the linguistic errors made by children acquiring a sign language coincide with those observed in hearing children acquiring spoken languages. The visual-gestural modality is shown not to have the expected impact on the acquisition processes, which is arguably regulated by strictly linguistic principles.

Iconicity and Arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language

Sign linguistics has always had to deal with the notion of iconicity because sign languages are much more iconic than vocal languages. Formal sign linguists have often tried to explain iconicity apart from descriptions of sign language, considering it as contradictory to the arbitrariness that must rule language organization as a natural consequence of the autonomy and the separateness of language. More recently, functional sign linguists have highlighted the presence of iconicity as a function of the peculiar visual-gestural modality of sign languages. This article provides quantitative information on the incidence of iconicity in the lexicon of Italian Sign Language (LIS). It observes how the principles of arbitrariness govern the great amount of iconicity that occurs in the LIS lexicon. It also tries to interpret both the high incidence of iconicity and the necessary presence of arbitrariness as responses to a deep need for economy. In order to explain why the arbitrary organization of the LIS lexicon does not prevent a high incidence of iconicity, I propose a revisited notion of arbitrariness based on Saussure�s original formulation of arbitrariness.