scholarly journals Signed Languages: A Triangular Semiotic Dimension

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Capirci ◽  
Chiara Bonsignori ◽  
Alessio Di Renzo
Keyword(s):  
The Core ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Linguistic Unit ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Linguistic Sign ◽  
Linguistic Units

Since the beginning of signed language research, the linguistic units have been divided into conventional, standard and fixed signs, all of which were considered as the core of the language, and iconic and productive signs, put at the edge of language. In the present paper, we will review different models proposed by signed language researchers over the years to describe the signed lexicon, showing how to overcome the hierarchical division between standard and productive lexicon. Drawing from the semiotic insights of Peirce we proposed to look at signs as a triadic construction built on symbolic, iconic, and indexical features. In our model, the different iconic, symbolic, and indexical features of signs are seen as the three sides of the same triangle, detectable in the single linguistic sign (Capirci, 2018; Puupponen, 2019). The key aspect is that the dominance of the feature will determine the different use of the linguistic unit, as we will show with examples from different discourse types (narratives, conference talks, poems, a theater monolog).

The notation of signed texts

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Antinoro Pizzuto ◽  
Paola Pietrandrea
Keyword(s):  
General Problem ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Future Work

This paper focuses on some of the major methodological and theoretical problems raised by the fact that there are currently no appropriate notation tools for analyzing and describing signed language texts. We propose to approach these problems taking into account the fact that all signed languages are at present languages without a written tradition. We describe and discuss examples of the gloss-based notation that is currently most widely used in the analysis of signed texts. We briefly consider the somewhat paradoxical problem posed by the difficulty of applying the notation developed for individual signs to signs connected in texts, and the more general problem of clearly identifying and characterizing the constituent units of signed texts. We then compare the use of glosses in signed and spoken language research, and we examine the major pitfalls we see in the use of glosses as a primary means to explore and describe the structure of signed languages. On this basis, we try to specify as explicitly as possible what can or cannot be learned about the structure of signed languages using a gloss-based notation, and to provide some indications for future work that may aim to overcome the limitations of this notation.

The notation of signed texts

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Antinoro Pizzuto ◽  
Paola Pietrandrea
Keyword(s):  
General Problem ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Future Work

This paper focuses on some of the major methodological and theoretical problems raised by the fact that there are currently no appropriate notation tools for analyzing and describing signed language texts. We propose to approach these problems taking into account the fact that all signed languages are at present languages without a written tradition. We describe and discuss examples of the gloss-based notation that is currently most widely used in the analysis of signed texts. We briefly consider the somewhat paradoxical problem posed by the difficulty of applying the notation developed for individual signs to signs connected in texts, and the more general problem of clearly identifying and characterizing the constituent units of signed texts. We then compare the use of glosses in signed and spoken language research, and we examine the major pitfalls we see in the use of glosses as a primary means to explore and describe the structure of signed languages. On this basis, we try to specify as explicitly as possible what can or cannot be learned about the structure of signed languages using a gloss-based notation, and to provide some indications for future work that may aim to overcome the limitations of this notation.

scholarly journals PHONOSEMANTISM AS PART OF THE SIGN SYSTEM OF LANGUAGE

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andriiva S. S.
Keyword(s):  
One Dimension ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Acoustic Image ◽  
Sign System ◽  
Linguistic Sign ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Powerful Means ◽  
Sound Unit ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
To Receive

Phonosemantics is a science with a thousand-year history, the attitude to which is ambiguous. Despite the fact that the main principle of this linguistic discipline about the motivation of the sound unit and the legitimacy of the phenomenon has been repeatedly questioned, although discussions on the universality and specificity of the phenomenon under study continue to this day. Language is the most powerful means of forming thought; social phenomenon that attest to such its main functions as informational, communicative, emotional, cognitive, epistemological, accumulative. All functions are usually implemented not in isolation, but in various combinations, because each statement in most cases is multifunctional. All functions ultimately work for communication, and that's in the sense that the communicative function is leading. Simultaneously with the acquisition of human language, it acquires knowledge about the world around, which significantly shortens and simplifies the path of cognition, protects a person from unnecessary mistakes. F. de Saussure explained the problem of the value of a linguistic sign, arguing that a linguistic sign combines a concept and an acoustic image and has two essential features: arbitrariness (unmotivated) and linearity (unfolding in time and one dimension). The sign is used to indicate an object outside it, to receive, store and transmit information. A sign acquires its meaning only in a certain system, because outside it is not a sign and means nothing. The palette of phonosemantic searches is inexhaustible, as each linguistic and literary-artistic direction in various manifestations considers the symbolism of images of phonemes, phonemes, morphemes, tokens, syntagms, texts. The scope of using linguistic units with existing phonosemantic features is different types of movement, sound, light phenomena, physiological and emotional states of both humans and animals.

Perceiving fingerspelling via point-light displays: The stimulus and the perceiver both matter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna C Quandt ◽  
Athena Willis ◽  
Carly Leannah
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Total N ◽  
Online Study ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Real Place ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Point Light

Signed language users communicate in a wide array of sub-optimal environments, such as in dim lighting or from a distance. While fingerspelling is a common and essential part of signed languages, the perception of fingerspelling in varying visual environments is not well understood. Signed languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) rely on visuospatial information that combines hand and bodily movements, facial expressions, and fingerspelling. Linguistic information in ASL is conveyed with movement and spatial patterning, which lends itself well to using dynamic Point Light Display (PLD) stimuli to represent sign language movements. We created PLD videos of fingerspelled location names. The location names were either Real (e.g., KUWAIT) or Pseudo-names (e.g., CLARTAND), and the PLDs showed either a High or a Low number of markers. In an online study, Deaf and Hearing ASL users (total N = 283) watched 27 PLD stimulus videos that varied by Realness and Number of Markers. We calculated accuracy and confidence scores in response to each video. We predicted that when signers see ASL fingerspelled letter strings in a suboptimal visual environment, language experience in ASL will be positively correlated with accuracy and self-rated confidence scores. We also predicted that Real location names would be understood better than Pseudo names. Our findings show that participants were more accurate and confident in response to Real place names than Pseudo names and for stimuli with High rather than Low markers. We also discovered a significant interaction between Age and Realness, which shows that as people age, they can better use outside world knowledge to inform their fingerspelling success. Finally, we examined the accuracy and confidence in fingerspelling perception in sub-groups of people who had learned ASL before the age of four. Studying the relationship between language experience with PLD fingerspelling perception allows us to explore how hearing status, ASL fluency levels, and age of language acquisition affect the core abilities of understanding fingerspelling.

Co-forming real space blends in tactile signed language dialogues

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Mesch ◽  
Eli Raanes ◽  
Lindsay Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
Body Part ◽  
Real Space ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Semiotic Perspective

AbstractThis article reports on a linguistic study examining the use of real space blending in the tactile signed languages of Norwegian and Swedish signers who are both deaf and blind. Tactile signed languages are typically produced by interactants in contact with each other’s hands while signing. Of particular interest to this study are utterances which not only consist of the signer producing signs with his or her own hands (or other body parts), but which also recruit the other interactant’s hands (or another body part). These utterances, although perhaps less frequent, are co-constructed, in a very real sense, and they illustrate meaning construction during emerging, embodied discourse. Here, we analyze several examples of these types of utterances from a cognitive linguistic and cognitive semiotic perspective to explore how interactants prompt meaning construction through touch and the involvement of each other’s bodies during a particular type of co-regulation.

Deafness

2020 ◽  
pp. 212-222
Author(s):  
Rebecca Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Spring Water ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Signed Language

This chapter describes deaf experiences of reading, particularly those that occur in signed languages. It explores both visual and tactile methods of signed language reading and analyzes the ways these practices enable alternative theorizations of reading and its potentials as well as the reasons that referring to the processes of decoding signed language utterances as reading is appropriate. Specifically, it focuses on the implications of encountering the human body as text and the relationships between human subjects and language that become possible in such contexts through readings of several ASSL poems including Bernard Bragg’s “Flowers and Moonlight on Spring Water” and “The Pilot and the Eagle,” Ian Sanborn’s “Caterpillar,” and Ayisha Knight-Shaw’s “Until.”

Gesture and language

Gesture ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherman Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Region I ◽  
Using Data

In this paper I explore the role of gesture in the development of signed languages. Using data from American Sign Language, Catalan Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language, as well as historical sources describing gesture in the Mediterranean region, I demonstrate that gesture enters the linguistic system via two distinct routes. In one, gesture serves as a source of lexical and grammatical morphemes in signed languages. In the second, elements become directly incorporated into signed language morphology, bypassing the lexical stage. Finally, I propose a unifying framework for understanding the gesture-language interface in signed and spoken languages.

Règles d’ordre des éléments Non Régis

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-194
Author(s):  
Sandra Teston-Bonnard
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Distributional Constraints ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
Grammatical Structures

In the first part of the paper we give an overwiew of a natural syntactic class of constituents defined by means of a specific set of criteria : the “non régis” (NR) (non integrated in the grammatical structure of the utterance). This class, gathers, various kinds of grammatical units of non canonical syntactic status in traditional descriptions : sentence adverbials, appositions, interjections, non canonical subordinate clauses, discourse particles… In the second part of the paper we show that, contrary to current assumptions, these linguistic units are not randomly combined with the core elements of the sentence. They are inserted in the utterance according to specific ordering rules and distributional constraints. These constraints are studied at two levels : constraints on their possible insertions in grammatical structures (microsyntax), constraints on the positions they can occupy in relation with the “macrosyntactic” nucleus of the utterance (the part of the utterance bearing its illocutionnary force) as defined in Blanche-Benveniste (84, 90).

scholarly journals THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF PHONOSTYLISTIC MEANS OF THE RUSSIAN AND UZBEK LANGUAGES

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-59
Author(s):  
Kunduz SAPAROVA
Keyword(s):  
Sound Level ◽  
Sound System ◽  
Single Level ◽  
Methods Of Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Unit ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Linguistic Units

This article is devoted to the study of similar and peculiar features of phonostylistic means of the Russian and Uzbek languages. In particular, it places a special emphasis on the stylistic properties of the phonetic system of the languages in comparison. The phonostylistic system of one or another language is a combination of stylistic properties of sound (phonetic) units of a language. Sound (phonetic) language units serve as stylistic markers of pronunciation styles, or phonetic styles. The stylistic properties of the sound systems of two or more languages involve the identification of interlanguage corresponding means of expressing the stylistic coloring of a linguistic unit at a sound level. The uniqueness of segment and super-segment phonostylistic units in different-system languages is the key factor of differences in the phonostylistic units of the sound system of the compared languages. An inventory of phonetic means of expressing the stylistic coloring of linguistic units is manifested when pronouncing variants of words, phrases and expressions. Interlanguage phonostylistic correspondence is single-level, and its identification is possible if there is developed material for the structure of phonostylistic systems of each individual language being compared. Key tasks of phonostylistics are determined by identifying both stylistically unmarked and stylistically marked units of the expression plan at the phonostylistic level of languages and establishing correspondences between them; identifying the causes of the isomorphism and allomorphism of the stylistic resources of their sound system. According to the methodology of the research, it is based on using the basic methods of analysis and general principles of comparison for analysis of phonostylistic units in compared languages.

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