Author: Victoria Anna Sophie Nyst
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Akan (African people)
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Adamorobe, a small Akan village in Ghana, has an unusually high incidence of hereditary deafness. As a result, a sign language came into being, Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL), which is unrelated to any other sign language described so far and is assumed to be about 200 years old. The present study describes selected aspects of AdaSL, notably phonology, lexicon, the expression of size and shape and the encoding of motion events. A comparison of these aspects with descriptions of other sign languages reveals interesting cross-linguistic differences in the use of iconicity as well as in the use of space and classifier constructions. Data were collected during three periods of fieldwork of nine months in total. Moreover, this study considers to what extent the social setting may influence the development of structural features in sign languages. This investigation nuances the impact the visual-spatial modality has on sign language structure. The book is of interest to scholars of sign linguistics, African linguistics, as well as contact linguistics and Deaf studies.
Author: Roland Pfau
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110261324
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1140
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Book Description
Sign language linguists show here that all questions relevant to the linguistic investigation of spoken languages can be asked about sign languages. Conversely, questions that sign language linguists consider - even if spoken language researchers have not asked them yet - should also be asked of spoken languages. The HSK handbook Sign Language aims to provide a concise and comprehensive overview of the state of the art in sign language linguistics. It includes 44 chapters, written by leading researchers in the field, that address issues in language typology, sign language grammar, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language documentation and transcription. Crucially, all topics are presented in a way that makes them accessible to linguists who are not familiar with sign language linguistics.
Author: Ulrike Zeshan
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501503324
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 477
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Book Description
Typological studies require a broad range of linguistic data from a variety of countries, especially developing nations whose languages are under-researched. This is especially challenging for investigations of sign languages, because there are no existing corpora for most of them, and some are completely undocumented. To examine three cross-linguistically fruitful semantic fields in sign languages from a typological perspective for the first time, a detailed questionnaire was generated and distributed worldwide through emails, mailing lists, websites and the newsletter of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). This resulted in robust data on kinship, colour and number in 32 sign languages across the globe, 10 of which are revealed in depth within this volume. These comprise languages from Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesian sign language varieties, which are rarely studied. Like other volumes in this series, this book will be illuminative for typologists, students of linguistics and deaf studies, lecturers, researchers, interpreters, and sign language users who travel internationally.
Author: Ulrike Zeshan
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 1614511497
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 422
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Book Description
The book is a unique collection of research on sign languages that have emerged in rural communities with a high incidence of, often hereditary, deafness. These sign languages represent the latest addition to the comparative investigation of languages in the gestural modality, and the book is the first compilation of a substantial number of different "village sign languages".Written by leading experts in the field, the volume uniquely combines anthropological and linguistic insights, looking at both the social dynamics and the linguistic structures in these village communities. The book includes primary data from eleven different signing communities across the world, including results from Jamaica, India, Turkey, Thailand, and Bali. All known village sign languages are endangered, usually because of pressure from larger urban sign languages, and some have died out already. Ironically, it is often the success of the larger sign language communities in urban centres, their recognition and subsequent spread, which leads to the endangerment of these small minority sign languages. The book addresses this specific type of language endangerment, documentation strategies, and other ethical issues pertaining to these sign languages on the basis of first-hand experiences by Deaf fieldworkers.
Author: Olivier Le Guen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501504886
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 462
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Book Description
This volume is the first to bring together researchers studying a range of different types of emerging sign languages in the Americas, and their relationship to the gestures produced in the surrounding communities of hearing individuals. Contents Acknowledgements Olivier Le Guen, Marie Coppola and Josefina Safar Introduction: How Emerging Sign Languages in the Americas contributes to the study of linguistics and (emerging) sign languages Part I: Emerging sign languages of the Americas. Descriptions and analysis John Haviland Signs, interaction, coordination, and gaze: interactive foundations of “Z”—an emerging (sign) language from Chiapas, Mexico Laura Horton Representational strategies in shared homesign systems from Nebaj, Guatemala Josefina Safar and Rodrigo Petatillo Chan Strategies of noun-verb distinction in Yucatec Maya Sign Languages Emmanuella Martinod, Brigitte Garcia and Ivani Fusellier A typological perspective on the meaningful handshapes in the emerging sign languages on Marajó Island (Brazil) Ben Braithwaite Emerging sign languages in the Caribbean Olivier Le Guen, Rebeca Petatillo and Rita (Rossy) Kinil Canché Yucatec Maya multimodal interaction as the basis for Yucatec Maya Sign Language Marie Coppola Gestures, homesign, sign language: Cultural and social factors driving lexical conventionalization Part II: Sociolinguistic sketches John B. Haviland Zinacantec family homesign (or “Z”) Laura Horton A sociolinguistic sketch of deaf individuals and families from Nebaj, Guatemala Josefina Safar and Olivier Le Guen Yucatec Maya Sign Language(s): A sociolinguistic overview Emmanuella Martinod, Brigitte Garcia and Ivani Fusellier Sign Languages on Marajó Island (Brazil) Ben Braithwaite Sociolinguistic sketch of Providence Island Sign Language Kristian Ali and Ben Braithwaite Bay Islands Sign Language: A Sociolinguistic Sketch Marie Coppola Sociolinguistic sketch: Nicaraguan Sign Language and Homesign Systems in Nicaragua
Author: John B. Haviland
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268509
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 148
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Book Description
The noun is an apparent cross-linguistic universal; nouns are central targets of language acquisition; they are frequently prototypical exemplars of Saussurian arbitrariness. This volume considers nouns in sign languages and in the evanescent performances of homesigners (and gesturers), which exhibit considerable iconic motivation. Do such systems mark nouns formally? Do they share strategies for forming nominal expressions? Individual chapters consider formal criteria for a noun/verb distinction in sign languages with different socio-linguistic profiles, strategies of “patterned iconicity” in a subcategory of nouns in both well-established and emerging sign languages, grammatical markers for a nominal class in a first generation family homesign system from Mexico, and the changing role of handshapes in signs referring to action and objects over the gradual development of a single deaf child’s homesign. The volume is of special interest to scholars of gesture, sign languages, linguistic typology, and the evolution, socialization, and ethnography of language. Originally published in Gesture Vol. 13:3 (2013).
Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316790665
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1661
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Book Description
Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expertise of a stellar selection of scholars, this Handbook highlights linguistic typology as a major discipline within the field of linguistics.
Author: Jan Nijen Twilhaar
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266883
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
This extensive, well-researched and clearly formatted lexicon of a wide variety of linguistic terms is a long overdue. It is an extremely welcome addition to the bookshelves of sign language teachers, interpreters, linguists, learners and other sign language users, and of course of the Deaf themselves. Unique to this lexicon is not only the inclusion of many terms that are used especially for sign languages, but also the fact that for the terms, there are not only examples from spoken languages but there are also glossed and translated examples from several different sign languages. There are many interesting features to this lexicon. There is an immediate temptation to find examples of terms in the sign language one is studying as well as determining how many of the most used concepts would be signed in the local language. As there are to date still almost no reference grammars of sign languages, the definitions of many of these concepts would be extremely helpful for those linguists planning to make a reference grammar of their sign language.
Author: Adam C. Schembri
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316240266
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
How do people use sign languages in different situations around the world? How are sign languages distributed globally? What happens when they come in contact with spoken and written languages? These and other questions are explored in this new introduction to the sociolinguistics of sign languages and deaf communities. An international team brings insights and data from a wide range of sign languages, from the USA, Canada, England, Spain, Brazil and Australia. Topics covered include multilingualism in the global deaf community, sociolinguistic variation and change in sign languages, bilingualism and language contact between signed and spoken languages, attitudes towards sign languages, sign language planning and policy, and sign language discourse. Sociolinguistics and Deaf Communities will be welcomed by students of sign language and interpreting, teachers of sign language, and students and academics working in linguistics.
Author: Helen Meekosha
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317681657
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
Disability is of central concern to the developing world but has largely been under-represented in global development debates, discourses and negotiations. Similarly, disability studies has overlooked the theorists, or the social experience, of the global South and there has been a one-way transfer of ideas and knowledge from the North to the South in this field. This volume seeks to redress the processes of scholarly colonialism by drawing together a diverse set of understandings, theorizing and experiences. The chapters situate disability within the Southern context and support the work of Southern disabled scholars and activists seeking to decolonize Southern experiences, knowledges and absences in the field while simultaneously attempting to make an intervention into able-bodied (mainstream) development discourses, practices and politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.
