scholarly journals The linguistic sources of offense of taboo terms in German Sign Language

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Loos ◽  
Jens-Michael Cramer ◽  
Donna Jo Napoli
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Think Aloud ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Think Aloud Protocol ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Cognitive Structuring ◽  
German Sign Language ◽  
Linguistic Means

AbstractTaboo terms offer a playground for linguistic creativity in language after language, and sign languages form no exception. The present paper offers the first investigation of taboo terms in sign languages from a cognitive linguistic perspective. We analyze the linguistic mechanisms that introduce offense, focusing on the combined effects of cognitive metonymy and iconicity. Using the Think Aloud Protocol, we elicited offensive or crass signs and dysphemisms from nine signers. We find that German Sign Language uses a variety of linguistic means to introduce and enhance offense, many of which rely on iconic properties of the taboo sign. In conjunction with cross-linguistically common metonymic word-formation strategies, the degree of visual explicitness of a sign increases its potential to offend. Semantically similar taboo signs based on the same metonymic anchor but differing in their degree of iconicity also differ in offensiveness. This allows for creating dysphemisms and euphemisms via phonological changes to a sign. We further show that embodiment creates modality-enhanced ‘vicarious embarrassment’ in the viewer that results in the respective signs being judged obscene or offensive. Further, lexical blending and non-manual enhancement play a role in the creation of dysphemisms in DGS. Lastly, we propose that iconicity as a cognitive structuring principle of linguistic expressions constrains the possible semantic extensions of iconic taboo terms.

scholarly journals Tunisian Students’ Perception and Awareness of Metadiscourse Stances in Reading an Academic Text

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Maha Dallagi
Keyword(s):  
Educational System ◽  
Tertiary Level ◽  
Think Aloud ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
Think Aloud Protocol ◽  
Linguistic Means ◽  
Reading Approaches

‘Lexical Invisiblity’ or failures in perceiving metadiscourse signs could impact students’ comprehension of text, especially academic ones. In the Tunisian educational system which divides Tertiary level students into broad specialisms, teachers adopt various reading approaches accordingly to students’ needs and requirements of their professional careers. This might lead to a focus on some linguistic aspects at the expense of others, and might prevent learners from understanding the conveyed message at its fullest. The current research aims to determine to what extent Tunisian University learners (N=12) are aware of the presence of stances, while reading an academic text. Echoing Low’s (1996) and Hyland’s (2003) studies, a Think- Aloud Protocol permitted to identify students’ shortage in perceiving interactional items, such as hedges and boosters. Findings indicate that students tend to focus on the overall content and make a total abstraction of the linguistic signs of certainty and uncertainty. The investigation stresses the importance of highlighting the linguistic means that enhance the comprehension of academic texts. As overlooking interactional devices could affect students’ accurate understanding of academic texts, EFL instructors are strongly suggested to raise learners’ awareness of Metadiscourse items by teaching them explicitly and drawing their attention to them.

scholarly journals person climbing up a tree

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Pfau ◽  
Markus Steinbach
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Functional Structure ◽  
Functional Domain ◽  
Functional Elements ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Spatial Properties ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
German Sign Language ◽  
Diachronic Changes ◽  
Functional Position

Studies on sign language grammaticalization have demonstrated that most of the attested diachronic changes from lexical to functional elements parallel those previously described for spoken languages. To date, most of these studies are either descriptive in nature or embedded within functional-cognitive theories. In contrast, we take a generative perspective on sign language grammaticalization, adopting ideas by Roberts & Roussou (2003), who suggest that grammaticalization can be characterized as “reanalysis ‘upwards’ along the functional structure”. Following an overview of some of the attested modality-independent pathways, we zoom in on the grammaticalization of two types of agreement auxiliaries, the lexical sources of which are the verb give and the noun person. We argue that the grammaticalization of give-aux (in Greek Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language) follows directly from Roberts & Roussou’s model because a lexical verb is reanalyzed as an element which is merged in a structurally higher functional position (little v). The same is true for person, but this change has an additional modality-specific flavor. In spoken languages, agreement affixes typically enter the functional domain of V via cliticization. In contrast, in German Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language, person, after having been reanalyzed as a determiner-like element, ‘jumps’ directly from D into AgrO — most probably because it has the relevant spatial properties necessary to express agreement. Thus, grammaticalization in sign languages, while being structurally similar, allows for types of reanalysis that are not attested in spoken languages.

scholarly journals Word classes in sign languages

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waldemar Schwager ◽  
Ulrike Zeshan
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Village Community ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
German Sign Language ◽  
Language Literature

The topic of word classes remains curiously under-represented in the sign language literature due to many theoretical and methodological problems in sign linguistics. This article focuses on language-specific classifications of signs into word classes in two different sign languages: German Sign Language and Kata Kolok, the sign language of a village community in Bali. The article discusses semantic and structural criteria for identifying word classes in the target sign languages. On the basis of a data set of signs, these criteria are systematically tested out as a first step towards an inductive classification of signs. Approaches and analyses relating to the problem of word classes in linguistic typology are used for shedding new light on the issue of word class distinctions in sign languages.

scholarly journals Processing pronominal pointing signs in German Sign Language: Neurophysiological evidence for the first mention effect

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Wienholz ◽  
Derya Nuhbalaoglu ◽  
Nivedita Mani ◽  
Annika Herrmann ◽  
Edgar Onea ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Pronoun Resolution ◽  
Potential Study ◽  
N400 Component ◽  
German Sign Language ◽  
Present Event

While the first mention bias has been well investigated in spoken languages, little is known about the presence of a similar bias in sign languages. In sign languages, pronominal pointing signs are directed towards referential locations in the ipsilateral and contralateral area of the signing space usually associated with referents in previous contexts. The present event-related potential study investigates the presence of a first mention effect during pronoun resolution in German Sign Language. We present participants with sentence sets containing two referents in the first sentence and a pronominal sign at the beginning of the second sentence directed to the ipsilateral or contralateral area of the signing space. Results show an N400 component for contralateral compared to ipsilateral pronominal signs suggesting increased processing costs associated with the second referent assigned to the contralateral area. Thus, the current study provides evidence for a first mention effect highlighting its modality independent nature.

The interaction of eye blinks and other prosodic cues in German Sign Language

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Eye Blinks ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
German Sign Language ◽  
Insight Into

As an interface phenomenon, prosody interacts with all components of grammar, even though it is often subsumed under the broad area of phonology. In sign languages, an equivalent system of prosody reveals interesting results with regard to modality-independent notions of language structure. This paper presents data from a study on German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS) and investigates prosodic cues on the basis of annotated video data. The focus of the study was on eye blinks and their use in prosodic structuring of signed utterances. Systematic methodology, annotation, and statistical evidence provided the basis for a thorough analysis of blinking behavior in DGS. The results suggest a consistent use of certain eye blinks as markers to indicate prosodic phrase boundaries. A constant 70%/30% ratio of prosodic and non-prosodic blinks further indicates the efficient use of this device. Even though some aspects of blinking are subject to inter-signer variation, the prosodic use of blinks is intriguingly similar across signers. However, blinks are not obligatory boundary markers in DGS. I propose an analysis that takes into account various factors such as syntactic constituency, prosodic structuring, and particularly the interplay of various nonmanuals such as eye gaze, head nods, and facial expressions. The fine-grained distinction of blinks resulting from a modified categorization for eye blinks and additional statistical computations give insight into how visual languages realize phrase boundaries and prosodic marking and to what extent they use the system consistently.

scholarly journals Deaf jokes and sign language humor

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Sutton-Spence ◽  
Donna Jo Napoli
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Deaf Identity ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThis paper describes the humor of Deaf communities, arguing that the humor is related primarily to the dominant visual experience of Deaf people, but also influenced by their knowledge of humor traditions in the hearing society at large. Sign language humor in America and Britain may be seen in the creation of new visual signs, the witty reanalysis of existing signs and in bilingual games in which English is manipulated within sign languages. The content of Deaf humor supports the in-group of community members who embrace their signing collective Deaf identity and denigrates out-group people, including deaf people who do not belong to the community and hearing people who are often seen as a threat to the community. Many of these jokes also make reference to sign language. We conclude that the visual nature of Deaf humor is one of its key characteristics and ask what else this can tell us about the Deaf cultural way of interacting with and presenting the world.

scholarly journals Word Formation below and above Little x: Evidence from Sign Language of the Netherlands

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.17 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Zwitserlood
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Surface Form ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Linguistic Model

Although in many respects sign languages have a similar structure to that of spoken languages, the different modalities in which both types of languages are expressed cause differences in structure as well. One of the most striking differences between spoken and sign languages is the influence of the interface between grammar and PF on the surface form of utterances. Spoken language words and phrases are in general characterized by sequential strings of sounds, morphemes and words, while in sign languages we find that many phonemes, morphemes, and even words are expressed simultaneously. A linguistic model should be able to account for the structures that occur in both spoken and sign languages. In this paper, I will discuss the morphological/ morphosyntactic structure of signs in Nederlandse Gebarentaal (Sign Language of the Netherlands, henceforth NGT), with special focus on the components ‘place of articulation’ and ‘handshape’. I will focus on their multiple functions in the grammar of NGT and argue that the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM), which accounts for word formation in spoken languages, is also suited to account for the formation of structures in sign languages. First I will introduce the phonological and morphological structure of NGT signs. Then, I will briefly outline the major characteristics of the DM framework. Finally, I will account for signs that have the same surface form but have a different morphological structure by means of that framework.

scholarly journals Ikonizität und Indexikalität im gebärdensprachlichen Lexikon – Zur Typologie sprachlicher Zeichen

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Kutscher
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Reference Object ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Iconic Signs ◽  
German Sign Language

AbstractThe 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’).

scholarly journals Argument Structure of Classifier Predicates: Canonical and Non-canonical Mappings in Four Sign Languages

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 332-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vadim Kimmelman ◽  
Vanja de Lint ◽  
Connie de Vos ◽  
Marloes Oomen ◽  
Roland Pfau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Canonical Mapping ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Event Structures ◽  
Classifier Predicates ◽  
German Sign Language

AbstractWe analyze argument structure of whole-entity and handling classifier predicates in four sign languages (Russian Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands, German Sign Language, and Kata Kolok) using parallel datasets (retellings of the Canary Row cartoons). We find that all four languages display a systematic, or canonical, mapping between classifier type and argument structure, as previously established for several sign languages: whole-entity classifier predicates are mostly used intransitively, while handling classifier predicates are used transitively. However, our data sets also reveal several non-canonical mappings which we address in turn. First, it appears that whole-entity classifier predicates can be used unergatively, rather than unaccusatively, contrary to expectations. Second, our data contain some transitive uses of whole-entity classifier predicates. Finally, we find that handling classifier predicates can express various complex event structures. We discuss what these findings imply for existing theories of classifier predicates in sign languages.

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