What is the chin doing?

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-150
Author(s):  
Katharina Schalber
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Common Foundation ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Manual Signs ◽  
Chin Down

The aim of this paper is to investigate the structure of polar (yes/no questions) and content questions (wh-questions) in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS), analyzing the different nonmanual signals, the occurrence of question signs and their syntactic position. As I will show, the marking strategies used in ÖGS are no exception to the crosslinguistic observations that interrogative constructions in sign languages employ a variety of nonmanual signals and manual signs (Zeshan 2004). In ÖGS polar questions are marked with ‘chin down’, whereas content questions are indicated with ‘chin up’ or ‘head forward’ and content question signs. These same nonmanual markers are reported for Croatian sign language, indicating common foundation due to historical relations and intense language contact.

What is the chin doing?: An analysis of interrogatives in Austrian sign language

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Schalber
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Common Foundation ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Manual Signs ◽  
Chin Down

The aim of this paper is to investigate the structure of polar (yes/no questions) and content questions (wh-questions) in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS), analyzing the different nonmanual signals, the occurrence of question signs and their syntactic position. As I will show, the marking strategies used in ÖGS are no exception to the crosslinguistic observations that interrogative constructions in sign languages employ a variety of nonmanual signals and manual signs (Zeshan 2004). In ÖGS polar questions are marked with ‘chin down’, whereas content questions are indicated with ‘chin up’ or ‘head forward’ and content question signs. These same nonmanual markers are reported for Croatian sign language, indicating common foundation due to historical relations and intense language contact.

Interrogative structures in Croatian Sign Language: Polar and content questions

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Ninoslava Šarac Kuhn ◽  
Ronnie B. Wilbur
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
General Question ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Eyes Closed ◽  
Peak Intensity ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Chin Down

In this study, we investigate the interrogative structures in Croatian Sign Language (HZJ) with respect to the word order, manual question words, and nonmanual markers and their scope. Both polar and content questions mainly use specific nonmanual markers to indicate interrogative function. Polar questions use chin down and content questions use chin up as their prominent nonmanual markers. In addition to these markers, brows up occurs in both constructions leading to the suggestion that brows up may be a general question marker in HZJ. Brows down can also occur, particularly in content questions. Other nonmanual markers that appear in polar questions are head forward, and eyes wide open and those in content questions are head forward, headshake, shoulders up, and eyes closed.Both interrogative constructions use manual question words. Polar questions can use an optional manual sign je-li that was probably introduced to HZJ through Signed Croatian. je-li is not connected to the peak intensity of the nonmanual markers and we consider it to be an adjunct to the question structure. Content words are used in most HZJ content interrogatives. Question words can be represented by specific signs or can be formed by the content sign ‘5’ (i.e. handshape 5 or b-th moving side-to-side). This ‘5’ sign is further specified by mouthing the particular question word from spoken Croatian. Content words can appear in sentence initial, sentence final or both positions. In content questions, question words bear the highest peak of nonmanual intensity, thus we consider them to be operating as operators.Recent research shows that HZJ shares some features with Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) because in the 19th century, Croatian deaf students attended Vienna’s Institute for the Deaf (Schalber this volume; Šarac 2003; Šarac et al in press). Upon finishing their education, they would return back to Croatia. Similarities between HZJ and ÖGS are found in their interrogative nonmanual markings but not in their syntactic structures. This can be seen by the fact that these two sign languages do not have the same canonical word order.

scholarly journals Signed languages and globalization

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Hiddinga ◽  
Onno Crasborn
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Deaf Culture ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
The Core ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Dependent Form ◽  
Global Language

AbstractDeaf people who form part of a Deaf community communicate using a shared sign language. When meeting people from another language community, they can fall back on a flexible and highly context-dependent form of communication calledinternational sign, in which shared elements from their own sign languages and elements of shared spoken languages are combined with pantomimic elements. Together with the fact that there are few shared sign languages, this leads to a very different global language situation for deaf people as compared to the situation for spoken languages and hearing people as analyzed in de Swaan (2001). We argue that this very flexibility in communication and the resulting global communication patterns form the core of deaf culture and a key component of the characterization of deaf people as “visual people.” (Globalization, sign language, international sign, Deaf culture, language contact, multilingualism)*

The impact of cross-linguistic variation in gesture on sign language phonology and morphology

Gesture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Nyst
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Size And Shape ◽  
Related Variation ◽  
Shared Ancestry ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Considerable Body

Abstract A considerable body of literature points at parallels between gestural elements and sign language structures. This raises the question to what extent variation in gesture environment may lead to related variation across sign languages, or, mutatis mutandis, to what extent similarities in gesture environment may lead to similarities across (otherwise unrelated) sign languages. This article will address that question by reviewing a series of studies relating to size and shape specifying (SASS) signs and gestures in signed and spoken languages in West Africa. The review finds that the use of body-based SASS gestures coincides with the use of body-based SASS signs in the sign languages studied, which in turn aligns with (a) restrictions on the number and types of handshapes used in space-based SASS signs, (b) limited use of space-based size depiction in lexical items (Nyst, 2018), and (c) a gap in the repertoire of phonemic handshapes. I conclude that culture-specific patterning in gesture environment may impact on cross-linguistic variation in SASS morphology and handshape phonology. As such, the gestural environment presents an explanation why SLs may be alike or different, in addition to shared ancestry, language contact, and iconicity.

Interrogative structures in Croatian Sign Language

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Ninoslava Šarac Kuhn ◽  
Ronnie B. Wilbur
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
General Question ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Eyes Closed ◽  
Peak Intensity ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Chin Down

In this study, we investigate the interrogative structures in Croatian Sign Language (HZJ) with respect to the word order, manual question words, and nonmanual markers and their scope. Both polar and content questions mainly use specific nonmanual markers to indicate interrogative function. Polar questions use chin down and content questions use chin up as their prominent nonmanual markers. In addition to these markers, brows up occurs in both constructions leading to the suggestion that brows up may be a general question marker in HZJ. Brows down can also occur, particularly in content questions. Other nonmanual markers that appear in polar questions are head forward, and eyes wide open and those in content questions are head forward, headshake, shoulders up, and eyes closed. Both interrogative constructions use manual question words. Polar questions can use an optional manual sign je-li that was probably introduced to HZJ through Signed Croatian. je-li is not connected to the peak intensity of the nonmanual markers and we consider it to be an adjunct to the question structure. Content words are used in most HZJ content interrogatives. Question words can be represented by specific signs or can be formed by the content sign ‘5’ (i.e. handshape 5 or b-th moving side-to-side). This ‘5’ sign is further specified by mouthing the particular question word from spoken Croatian. Content words can appear in sentence initial, sentence final or both positions. In content questions, question words bear the highest peak of nonmanual intensity, thus we consider them to be operating as operators. Recent research shows that HZJ shares some features with Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) because in the 19th century, Croatian deaf students attended Vienna’s Institute for the Deaf (Schalber this volume; Šarac 2003; Šarac et al in press). Upon finishing their education, they would return back to Croatia. Similarities between HZJ and ÖGS are found in their interrogative nonmanual markings but not in their syntactic structures. This can be seen by the fact that these two sign languages do not have the same canonical word order.

The prominence of spoken language elements in a sign language

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bank ◽  
Onno Crasborn ◽  
Roeland van Hout
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Regional Origin ◽  
Manual Signs ◽  
Information Streams

Abstractin sign languages consist of simultaneously articulated manual signs and spoken language words. These “mouthings” (typically silent articulations) have been observed for many different sign languages. The present study aims to investigate the extent of such bimodal code-mixing in sign languages by investigating the frequency of mouthings produced by deaf users of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), their co-occurrence with pointing signs, and whether any differences can be explained by sociolinguistic variables such as regional origin and age of the signer. We investigated over 10,000 mouth actions from 70 signers, and found that the mouth and the hands are equally active during signing. Moreover, around 80 % of all mouth actions are mouthings, while the remaining 20 % are unrelated to Dutch. We found frequency differences between individual signers and a small effect for level of education, but not for other sociolinguistic variables. Our results provide genuine evidence that mouthings form an inextricable component of signed interaction. Rather than displaying effects of competition between languages or spoken language suppression, NGT signers demonstrate the potential of the visual modality to conjoin parallel information streams.

Two agreement markers in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS)

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Krebs ◽  
Ronnie B. Wilbur ◽  
Dietmar Roehm
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Native Signers

Abstract For many of the sign languages studied to date, different types of agreement markers have been described which express agreement in transitive constructions involving non-inflecting (plain) verbs and sometimes even inflected agreement verbs. Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) belongs to the group of sign languages employing two different agreement markers (agrm-bc/agrm-mf), which will be described in this paper. In an online questionnaire, we focused on two questions: (i) whether both forms of agreement markers are rated as equally acceptable by Deaf ÖGS-signers and hearing native signers, and (ii) whether there is a preferred syntactic position (pre- vs. postverbal) for these markers. Data analysis confirmed that both agreement markers are accepted by ÖGS-signers and that both agreement markers are slightly preferred in preverbal position. Further, possible origins of both agreement markers are discussed.

scholarly journals Two languages at hand

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Zeshan ◽  
Sibaji Panda
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Specific Question ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Indian Sign Language

This article explores patterns of co-use of two sign languages in casual conversational data from four deaf bilinguals, who are fluent in Indian Sign Language (ISL) and Burundi Sign Language (BuSL). We investigate the contributions that both sign languages make to these conversations at lexical, clause, and discourse level, including a distinction between signs from closed grammatical classes and open lexical classes. The results show that despite individual differences between signers, there are also striking commonalities. Specifically, we demonstrate the shared characteristics of the signers’ bilingual outputs in the domains of negation, where signers prefer negators found in both sign languages, and wh-questions, where signers choose BuSL for specific question words and ISL for general wh-questions. The article thus makes the argument that these signers have developed a fairly stable bilingual variety that is characteristic of this particular community of practice, and we explore theoretical implications arising from these patterns.

Hands and faces: The expression of modality in ZEI, Iranian Sign Language

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Siyavoshi
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Downward Movement ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
The Face ◽  
Manual Signs ◽  
Grammar Model

Abstract This paper presents a study of modality in Iranian Sign Language (ZEI) from a cognitive perspective, aimed at analyzing two linguistic channels: facial and manual. While facial markers and their grammatical functions have been studied in some sign languages, we have few detailed analyses of the facial channel in comparison with the manual channel in conveying modal concepts. This study focuses on the interaction between manual and facial markers. A description of manual modal signs is offered. Three facial markers and their modality values are also examined: squinted eyes, brow furrow, and downward movement of lip corners (horseshoe mouth). In addition to offering this first descriptive analysis of modality in ZEI, this paper also applies the Cognitive Grammar model of modality, the Control Cycle, and the Reality Model, classifying modals into two kinds, effective and epistemic. It is suggested that effective control, including effective modality, tends to be expressed on the hands, while facial markers play an important role in marking epistemic assessment, one manifestation of which is epistemic modality. ZEI, like some other sign languages, exhibits an asymmetry between the number of manual signs and facial markers expressing epistemic modality: while the face can be active in the expression of effective modality, it is commonly the only means of expressing epistemic modality. By positing an epistemic core in effective modality, Cognitive Grammar provides a theoretical basis for these findings.

Variation in mouth actions with manual signs in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bank ◽  
Onno A. Crasborn ◽  
Roeland van Hout
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Natural Data ◽  
Manual Signs ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

Mouthings and mouth gestures are omnipresent in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Mouthings in NGT commonly have their origin in spoken Dutch. We conducted a corpus study to explore how frequent mouthings in fact are in NGT, whether there is variation within and between signs in mouthings, and how frequent temporal reduction occurs in mouthings. Answers to these questions can help us classify mouthings as being specified in the sign lexicon or as being instances of code-blending. We investigated a sample of 20 frequently occurring signs. We found that each sign in the sample co-occurs frequently with a mouthing, usually that of a specific Dutch lexical item. On the other hand, signs show variation in the way they co-occur with mouthings and mouth gestures. By using a relatively large amount of natural data, we succeeded in gaining more insight into the way mouth actions are utilized in sign languages.

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