The effect of sociolinguistic factors on variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-88
Author(s):  
Katie Mudd ◽  
Hannah Lutzenberger ◽  
Connie de Vos ◽  
Paula Fikkert ◽  
Onno Crasborn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Family Member ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Lexical Variation ◽  
Supplementary Material ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Description Task

Abstract Abstract (International Sign) Sign languages can be categorized as shared sign languages or deaf community sign languages, depending on the context in which they emerge. It has been suggested that shared sign languages exhibit more variation in the expression of everyday concepts than deaf community sign languages (Meir, Israel, Sandler, Padden, & Aronoff, 2012). For deaf community sign languages, it has been shown that various sociolinguistic factors condition this variation. This study presents one of the first in-depth investigations of how sociolinguistic factors (deaf status, age, clan, gender and having a deaf family member) affect lexical variation in a shared sign language, using a picture description task in Kata Kolok. To study lexical variation in Kata Kolok, two methodologies are devised: the identification of signs by underlying iconic motivation and mapping, and a way to compare individual repertoires of signs by calculating the lexical distances between participants. Alongside presenting novel methodologies to study this type of sign language, we present preliminary evidence of sociolinguistic factors that may influence variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon.

People Are Less Susceptible to Illusion When They Use Their Hands to Communicate Rather Than Estimate

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762199155
Author(s):  
Amanda R. Brown ◽  
Wim Pouw ◽  
Diane Brentari ◽  
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Estimation Task ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Lyer Illusion ◽  
Description Task ◽  
The Way

When we use our hands to estimate the length of a stick in the Müller-Lyer illusion, we are highly susceptible to the illusion. But when we prepare to act on sticks under the same conditions, we are significantly less susceptible. Here, we asked whether people are susceptible to illusion when they use their hands not to act on objects but to describe them in spontaneous co-speech gestures or conventional sign languages of the deaf. Thirty-two English speakers and 13 American Sign Language signers used their hands to act on, estimate the length of, and describe sticks eliciting the Müller-Lyer illusion. For both gesture and sign, the magnitude of illusion in the description task was smaller than the magnitude of illusion in the estimation task and not different from the magnitude of illusion in the action task. The mechanisms responsible for producing gesture in speech and sign thus appear to operate not on percepts involved in estimation but on percepts derived from the way we act on objects.

scholarly journals Deaf Ni-Vanuatu and their signs: A sociolinguistic study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacqueline Iseli
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Field Methodology ◽  
Degree Of Similarity ◽  
Similarity Of Signs

<p>This thesis provides the first documentation and description of the signs created and used by deaf individuals in Vanuatu. The specific aims of this research were as follows: to establish the sociolinguistic context experienced by deaf people in Vanuatu; to identify the repertoire and characteristics of signs used by the deaf participants; to compare features of participants’ individual signs with the characteristics of home signs and emerging sign languages; and to consider the degree of similarity and potential similarity of signs between participants and how this reflects individuals’ opportunities for contact with other deaf people and signing interlocutors. The limitations of this study are that field methodology for data collection was developed in situ as conditions allowed. The sociolinguistic context for deaf Ni-Vanuatu confirms that language isolation leads to marginalisation from community and society. The study established that these home sign lexicons were limited in quantity and conceptual range, and that shared background knowledge was essential for comprehension. Overall, 22 handshapes were documented, and the predominant handshapes unmarked. Most participants preferred handling strategy for depicting signs. Some evidence of noun-verb distinction was noted in the repertoire of some participants. However, across this range of formational characteristics, results showed significant individual variations. Furthermore, multiple barriers have precluded development of a shared sign language and any form of deaf community.</p>

scholarly journals Sign Order in Slovenian Sign Language Transitive and Ditransitive Sentences

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 199-220
Author(s):  
Matic Pavlič
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Classifier Predicates ◽  
Description Task

The basic sign order in Slovenian Sign Language (SZJ) is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). This is shown by analysing non-topicalised or focalised transitive and ditransitive sentences that were elicited from first language SZJ informants using Picture Description Task. The data further reveal that the visual-gestural modality, through which SZJ is transmitted, plays a role in linearization since visually influenced classifier predicates trigger the non-basic SOV sign order in this language.

scholarly journals Social meanings of linguistic variation in BISINDO (Indonesian Sign Language)

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-118
Author(s):  
Nick Palfreyman
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Supplementary Material ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract Abstract (International Sign) In contrast to sociolinguistic research on spoken languages, little attention has been paid to how signers employ variation as a resource to fashion social meaning. This study focuses on an extremely understudied social practice, that of sign language usage in Indonesia, and asks where one might look to find socially meaningful variables. Using spontaneous data from a corpus of BISINDO (Indonesian Sign Language), it blends methodologies from Labovian variationism and analytic practices from the ‘third wave’ with a discursive approach to investigate how four variable linguistic features are used to express social identities. These features occur at different levels of linguistic organisation, from the phonological to the lexical and the morphosyntactic, and point to identities along regional and ethnic lines, as well as hearing status. In applying third wave practices to sign languages, constructed action and mouthings in particular emerge as potent resources for signers to make social meaning.

scholarly journals Exploring Networks of Lexical Variation in Russian Sign Language

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vadim Kimmelman ◽  
Anna Komarova ◽  
Lyudmila Luchkova ◽  
Valeria Vinogradova ◽  
Oksana Alekseeva
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Visualization Tool ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Lexical Variation ◽  
Orientation Movement ◽  
Complex Cases ◽  
Formal Rules

When describing variation at the lexical level in sign languages, researchers often distinguish between phonological and lexical variants, using the following principle: if two signs differ in only one of the major phonological components (handshape, orientation, movement, location), then they are considered phonological variants, otherwise they are considered separate lexemes. We demonstrate that this principle leads to contradictions in some simple and more complex cases of variation. We argue that it is useful to visualize the relations between variants as graphs, and we describe possible networks of variants that can arise using this visualization tool. We further demonstrate that these scenarios in fact arise in the case of variation in color terms and kinship terms in Russian Sign Language (RSL), using a newly created database of lexical variation in RSL. We show that it is possible to develop a set of formal rules that can help distinguish phonological and lexical variation also in the problematic scenarios. However, we argue that it might be a mistake to dismiss the actual patterns of variant relations in order to arrive at the binary lexical vs. phonological variant opposition.

Dictionaries of Libras from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Jorge Bidarra ◽  
Tania Aparecida Martins
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
First Century ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Historical Trajectory

Sign languages, structurally different from oral languages, are based on gestures and involve their own grammars and repertoires of lexical units (signals or signs), and they play an important role in establishing communication among deaf people around the world. This chapter primarily focuses on the development of dictionaries for Libras (an acronym for Língua Brasileira de Sinais, or ‘Brazilian Language of Signs’), the natural language of the Brazilian deaf community. It traces the influence of the first dictionary of the deaf in Brazil, Iconographia dos Signaes dos Surdos-Mudos (‘Iconography of Signs of Deaf-Mutes’), which was published in 1875 by the National Institute of Education of the Deaf (INES) and authored by Flausino José da Gama, a student at the Institute. In their demonstration of the influence and inspiration this dictionary gave to lexicographers who followed da Gama, Bidarra and Martins outline the historical trajectory of sign languages up to the present, considering different and parallel paths for sign languages in different countries, forms of stigmatization of sign language, and barriers to its use. Incorporating this historical and transnational analysis, Bidarra and Martins present both a broad discussion of the various models of sign language dictionaries that have been used around the world and an in-depth analysis of the development of Libras dictionaries in Brazil to the modern day.

scholarly journals Variation in the numeral system of Japanese Sign Language and Taiwan Sign Language

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-150
Author(s):  
Keiko Sagara ◽  
Nick Palfreyman
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
Supplementary Material ◽  
Lasting Impression ◽  
Japanese Sign Language ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Abstract (Japanese Sign Language) The numerals 10, 100 and 1,000 are expressed variably in Japanese Sign Language (JSL) and Taiwan Sign Language (TSL), two languages that also have historic links. JSL was used in deaf schools that were established in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era, leaving a lasting impression on TSL, but complex sociolinguistic situations have led to different outcomes in each case (Fischer, 2014; Sagara, 2014). This comparative sociolinguistic analysis is based on two datasets comprising a total of 1,100 tokens produced by 72 signers from the Kanto and Kansai regions (for JSL) and the cities of Tainan and Taipei (for TSL). Mixed effects modelling reveals that social factors such as the age and region of the signer have a significant influence on how the variable is realised. This investigation shows how careful cross-linguistic comparison can shed light on variation within and between sign languages that have been in contact, and how regional variation in one language may influence regional variation in another.

scholarly journals Deaf Ni-Vanuatu and their signs: A sociolinguistic study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacqueline Iseli
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Field Methodology ◽  
Degree Of Similarity ◽  
Similarity Of Signs

<p>This thesis provides the first documentation and description of the signs created and used by deaf individuals in Vanuatu. The specific aims of this research were as follows: to establish the sociolinguistic context experienced by deaf people in Vanuatu; to identify the repertoire and characteristics of signs used by the deaf participants; to compare features of participants’ individual signs with the characteristics of home signs and emerging sign languages; and to consider the degree of similarity and potential similarity of signs between participants and how this reflects individuals’ opportunities for contact with other deaf people and signing interlocutors. The limitations of this study are that field methodology for data collection was developed in situ as conditions allowed. The sociolinguistic context for deaf Ni-Vanuatu confirms that language isolation leads to marginalisation from community and society. The study established that these home sign lexicons were limited in quantity and conceptual range, and that shared background knowledge was essential for comprehension. Overall, 22 handshapes were documented, and the predominant handshapes unmarked. Most participants preferred handling strategy for depicting signs. Some evidence of noun-verb distinction was noted in the repertoire of some participants. However, across this range of formational characteristics, results showed significant individual variations. Furthermore, multiple barriers have precluded development of a shared sign language and any form of deaf community.</p>

Order of words, signs, and gestures: A first comparison

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Laudanna ◽  
Virginia Volterra
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Order Of Elements

ABSTRACTThe present study evaluates the contribution of visuo-gestural modality versus linguistic factors in determining the order of elements in sign language. The same picture description task was given to 12 hearing subjects using spoken Italian, 12 deaf subjects using Italian Sign Language, and 12 hearing subjects using pantomime. Nonreversible, reversible, and locative productions with two elements were elicited. The results showed that Italian Sign Language differs along significant lines from both spoken Italian and pantomime. The pattern of similarities and differences found among the three experimental conditions allows us to argue that the order of signs in the sentence is sensitive to modality as well as linguistic factors depending on the particular sentence structures considered.

scholarly journals Investigating Lexical Variation in British Sign Language in Leeds

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-13
Author(s):  
Lily Blount
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Lexical Variation ◽  
British Sign Language ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
British Sign

This research investigates lexical variation in British Sign Language (BSL) in Leeds, and the extent to which variation in signs for the numbers one to twenty correlate to signer age. Previous studies have compared regional varieties of BSL in eight different UK cities examining the number signs one to twenty, but none so far have explored the deaf community in Leeds. The work presented here is therefore the first to address this area. Overall, age is concluded to be a strong predictor of variation. Younger signers were found to use significantly fewer traditional signs that are regionally distinct to BSL in Leeds than the older generation of signers. This may be seen as evidence of dialect levelling. This research suggests that lexical change in BSL is taking place and also presents the first documentation of Leeds specific variants, some of which have not been documented in the current BSL literature.

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