scholarly journals How handshape type can distinguish between nouns and verbs in homesign

Gesture ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dea Hunsicker ◽  
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Combinatorial System ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Do So

All established languages, spoken or signed, make a distinction between nouns and verbs. Even a young sign language emerging within a family of deaf individuals has been found to mark the noun-verb distinction, and to use handshape type to do so. Here we ask whether handshape type is used to mark the noun-verb distinction in a gesture system invented by a deaf child who does not have access to a usable model of either spoken or signed language. The child produces homesigns that have linguistic structure, but receives from his hearing parents co-speech gestures that are structured differently from his own gestures. Thus, unlike users of established and emerging languages, the homesigner is a producer of his system but does not receive it from others. Nevertheless, we found that the child used handshape type to mark the distinction between nouns and verbs at the early stages of development. The noun-verb distinction is thus so fundamental to language that it can arise in a homesign system not shared with others. We also found that the child abandoned handshape type as a device for distinguishing nouns from verbs at just the moment when he developed a combinatorial system of handshape and motion components that marked the distinction. The way the noun-verb distinction is marked thus depends on the full array of linguistic devices available within the system.

What We Can Learn From Hearing Parents of Deaf Children

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Flaherty
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Language Technologies ◽  
Depth Interviews

Hearing parents of deaf children face stresses and demands related to parenting a deaf child, including difficult choices about language, technologies, education and identity for their children (Marschark, 1997). To date, few researchers have discussed the unique challenges faced by this group. Through a series of semistructured, in-depth interviews with 18 parents, this study investigated the experiences of hearing parents of deaf children spanning various life stages. A phenomenological approach identified 5 themes most pertinent to understanding their experiences. Each theme offers insight, particularly for professionals, into the distinctive issues that might arise at the time of diagnosis of deafness and reveals the challenges hearing parents face when confronted with a barrage of decisions, including choice of oral or sign language, mainstream or special deaf education, and identity with the hearing or Deaf community. The central message from this work is to inform hearing parents of deaf children and professionals working with these parents of the likely challenges that they may face.

Aspecten in de Gebarentaalontwikkeling van Dove Kinderen van Dove en Horende Ouders

1995 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Carola Rooijmans
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Observational Research ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Deaf Parents ◽  
School For The Deaf ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Research has shown parallels in the development of linguistic aspects found in sign languages and spoken languages when acquired as a first language (Newport & Meier, 1985). Deaf children of deaf parents (DCDP) are exposed to sign language early and are able to acquire it effortlessly. However, only about 10% of deaf children have deaf parents. More commonly the deaf child is born into a hearing family. These hearing parents usually use a communication system in which spoken words are supported simultaneously with signs. Such a sign system differs considerably from a sign language as it is not a natural language. Deaf children of hearing parents (DCHP) come into contact with sign language when they go to a school for the deaf. Research indicates that DCHP do acquire sign language structures, but this acquisition is delayed (Knoors, 1992). In this study a description of the development of morpho-syntactic and lexical aspects of the Sign Language of the Netherlands is given. The sign language production of three DCDP is analysed every six months from 1;0 to 3;6. Furthermore, the sign language production of three DCHP at the age of 3;6 is compared with that of the DCDP at the same age. The study includes both general measures such as Mean Length of Utterance and Type/Token Ratio and aspects specific to sign languages such as the use of POINTS in two sign combinations. Recommendations will be made with respect to the improvement of observational research on language acquision of DCDP and DCHP.

scholarly journals The value of interaction in the acquisition of a sign language

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-798
Author(s):  
Elidéa Lúcia Almeida Bernardino
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Deaf Parents ◽  
Brazilian Sign Language ◽  
First Contact

The acquisition of a sign language as a first language is a subject that is also of interest to researchers from many fields of study. This acquisition is significant for both deaf children of deaf parents as well as those of hearing parents, who consequently have late access to a language like Brazilian Sign language (Libras). The present study describes a test conducted with a pair of deaf twins who have hearing parents and who had their first contact with Libras at 5 years of age. However, upon being tested less than three years later, the twins showed a performance in Libras that was comparable to a deaf child of deaf parents. Although inconclusive, this study seeks to show the value of a continuous interlocutor, together with a genuine communicative interaction beginning from childhood, as commonly occurs with deaf twins, in the acquisition of a sign language.

scholarly journals Spatial Vantage Points in Norwegian Sign Language

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 583-600
Author(s):  
Lindsay Ferrara ◽  
Torill Ringsø
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Spatial Language ◽  
Fixed Position ◽  
External Observer ◽  
Point Position ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Vantage Points

AbstractPrevious studies on perspective in spatial signed language descriptions suggest a basic dichotomy between either a route or a survey perspective, which entails either the signer being conceptualized as a mobile agent within a life-sized scene or the signer in a fixed position as an external observer of a scaled-down scene. We challenge this dichotomy by investigating the particular couplings of vantage point position and mobility engaged during various types of spatial language produced across eight naturalistic conversations in Norwegian Sign Language. Spatial language was annotated for the purpose of the segment, the size of the environment described, the signs produced, and the location and mobility of vantage points. Analysis revealed that survey and route perspectives, as characterized in the literature, do not adequately account for the range of vantage point combinations observed in conversations (e.g., external, but mobile, vantage points). There is also some preliminary evidence that the purpose of the spatial language and the size of the environments described may also play a role in how signers engage vantage points. Finally, the study underscores the importance of investigating spatial language within naturalistic conversational contexts.

scholarly journals Computer-assisted sign language translation: a study of translators’ practice to specify CAT software

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Kaczmarek ◽  
Michael Filhol
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Translation ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Subjective Data ◽  
Do So

AbstractProfessional Sign Language translators, unlike their text-to-text counterparts, are not equipped with computer-assisted translation (CAT) software. Those softwares are meant to ease the translators’ tasks. No prior study as been conducted on this topic, and we aim at specifying such a software. To do so, we based our study on the professional Sign Language translators’ practices and needs. The aim of this paper is to identify the necessary steps in the text-to-sign translation process. By filming and interviewing professionals for both objective and subjective data, we build a list of tasks and see if they are systematic and performed in a definite order. Finally, we reflect on how CAT tools could assist those tasks, how to adapt the existing tools to Sign Language and what is necessary to add in order to fit the needs of Sign Language translation. In the long term, we plan to develop a first prototype of CAT software for sign languages.

Thinking technology for the Anthropocene: encountering 3D printing through the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Roberts
Keyword(s):  
3D Printing ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Anthropogenic Change ◽  
Technological Processes ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Gilbert Simondon ◽  
Do So

The notion that the Earth has entered a new epoch characterized by the ubiquity of anthropogenic change presents the social sciences with something of a paradox, namely, that the point at which we recognize our species to be a geologic force is also the moment where our assumed metaphysical privilege becomes untenable. Cultural geography continues to navigate this paradox in conceptually innovative ways through its engagements with materialist philosophies, more-than-human thinking and experimental modes of ontological enquiry. Drawing upon the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, this article contributes to these timely debates by articulating the paradox of the Anthropocene in relation to technological processes. Simondon’s philosophy precedes the identification of the Anthropocene epoch by a number of decades, yet his insistence upon situating technology within an immanent field of material processes resonates with contemporary geographical concerns in a number of important ways. More specifically, Simondon’s conceptual vocabulary provides a means of framing our entanglements with technological processes without assuming a metaphysical distinction between human beings and the forces of nature. In this article, I show how Simondon’s concepts of individuation and transduction intersect with this technological problematic through his far-reaching critique of the ‘hylomorphic’ distinction between matter and form. Inspired by Simondon’s original account of the genesis of a clay brick, the article unfolds these conceptual challenges through two contrasting empirical encounters with 3D printing technologies. In doing so, my intention is to lend an affective consistency to Simondon’s problematic, and to do so in a way that captures the kinds of material mutations expressive of a particular technological moment.

Comparative leaf development of aerial and aquatic growth forms of Myriophyllum aquaticum

Botany ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 91 (7) ◽  
pp. 421-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.D. Shafiullah ◽  
Christian R. Lacroix
Keyword(s):  
Apical Meristem ◽  
Epidermal Cells ◽  
The Other ◽  
Developmental Study ◽  
Growth Forms ◽  
Myriophyllum Aquaticum ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Other Hand

Myriophyllum aquaticum (Vell.) Verdc. produces two morphologically different forms of leaves based on whether they are aerial or aquatic. The objective of this study was to determine whether there are any similarities or differences between these two growth forms during their early stages of development. A comparative developmental study of aerial and aquatic growth forms of M. aquaticum was conducted from a qualitative and quantitative perspective using a scanning electron microscope. The pattern of leaf and lobe initiation such as their origin and shape were similar in both growth forms until the fourth plastochron (stage P4). Differences between the two growth forms became evident from stage P5 onward, where a larger shoot apical meristem (SAM), elongated epidermal cells, shorter and slightly more numerous lobes, as well as the presence of appendage-like structures characterized aquatic growth forms. On the other hand, aerial growth forms had smaller SAM, bulb-like epidermal cells, and longer and slightly less numerous leaf lobes. Significant differences between growth forms were noted for parameters such as volume of SAM, length of terminal, first, and middle lobes, as well as the length from first to last lobes. The volume of the SAM of aquatic shoot tips was always greater than aerial forms. On the other hand, lobes of aerial forms were always longer than the aquatic counterpart during early stages of development. This study on the development of M. aquaticum shows that the aerial and aquatic growth forms diverge from their early stages of development.

XV. On the development of the parasitic isopoda

1878 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 505-521 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Abdominal Appendages ◽  
Pair Of Antennae

The following paper contains an account of observations on the development of the species Cymothoa œstroides and C . parallela of Milne Edwards; but the forms of the young seem to show that several species are really included under these two names. In the early stages of development the only observable difference that exists between the embryos is one of size, but in the later stages they differ very markedly from each other in their external characters. From adult individuals answering the description of C . œstroides I have obtained four varieties of embryos: two with long antennae and two with short.* In the two former the first pair of antennae are but slightly longer than the head, while the second pair are longer than the body; the eyes are small. In one of the varieties thus characterised the abdominal appendages are fringed with long hairs (fig. 20), and in the other they are smooth.

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