1) Formational Units in Sign Languages
Volume
3
Earliest Publication Date
2011
Sign languages and spoken languages have an equal capacity to communicate our thoughts. Beyond this, however, while there are many similarities, there are also fascinating differences, caused primarily by the reaction of the human mind to different modalities, but also by some important social differences. The articulators are more visible and use larger muscles with consequent greater effort. It is difficult to visually attend to both a sign and an object at the same time. Iconicity is more systematic and more available in signs. The body, especially the face, plays a much larger role in sign. Sign languages are more frequently born anew as small groups of deaf people come together in villages or schools. Sign languages often borrow from the written form of the surrounding spoken language, producing fingerspelling alphabets, character signs, and related signs. This book examines the effects of these and other differences using observation, experimentation and theory. The languages examined include Asian, Middle Eastern, European and American sign languages, and language situations include home signers and small village signers, children, gesturers, adult signers, and non-native signers.
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2) Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights
Volume
4
Earliest Publication Date
2012
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.
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3) The Use of Signing Space in a Shared Sign Language of Australia
Author
Volume
5
Earliest Publication Date
2014
In this book, an Australian Aboriginal sign language used by Indigenous people in the North East Arnhem Land (Northern Territory) is described on the level of spatial grammar. Topics discussed range from properties of individual signs to structure of interrogative and negative sentences. The main interest is the manifestation of signing space - the articulatory space surrounding the signers - for grammatical purposes in Yolngu Sign Language.
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4) Semantic Fields in Sign Languages: Colour, Kinship and Quantification
Volume
6
Earliest Publication Date
2016
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.
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5) Sign Multilingualism
Volume
7
Earliest Publication Date
2019
This volume has arisen from a three-part, five-year study on language contact among multilingual sign language users, which has three strands: cross-signing, sign-switching, and sign-speaking. These phenomena are only sparsely documented so far, and thus the volume is highly innovative and presents data and analyses not previously available.
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6) Variation in Indonesian Sign Language: A Typological and Sociolinguistic Analysis
Author
Volume
8
Earliest Publication Date
2019
This pioneering work on Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) explores the linguistic and social factors that lie behind variation in the grammatical domains of negation and completion. Using a corpus of spontaneous data from signers in the cities of Solo and Makassar, Palfreyman applies an innovative blend of methods from sign language typology and Variationist Sociolinguistics, with findings that have important implications for our understanding of grammaticalisation in sign languages. The book will be of interest to linguists and sociolinguists, including those without prior experience of sign language research, and to all who are curious about the history of Indonesia's urban sign community. Nick Palfreyman is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS), University of Central Lancashire.
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7) Emerging Sign Languages of the Americas
Volume
9
Earliest Publication Date
2020
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 SafarIntroduction: 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 HavilandSigns, interaction, coordination, and gaze: interactive foundations of "Z"-an emerging (sign) language from Chiapas, Mexico Laura HortonRepresentational strategies in shared homesign systems from Nebaj, Guatemala Josefina Safar and Rodrigo Petatillo ChanStrategies of noun-verb distinction in Yucatec Maya Sign Languages Emmanuella Martinod, Brigitte Garcia and Ivani FusellierA typological perspective on the meaningful handshapes in the emerging sign languages on Marajó Island (Brazil) Ben BraithwaiteEmerging sign languages in the Caribbean Olivier Le Guen, Rebeca Petatillo and Rita (Rossy) Kinil CanchéYucatec Maya multimodal interaction as the basis for Yucatec Maya Sign Language Marie CoppolaGestures, homesign, sign language: Cultural and social factors driving lexical conventionalization Part II: Sociolinguistic sketches John B. HavilandZinacantec family homesign (or "Z") Laura HortonA sociolinguistic sketch of deaf individuals and families from Nebaj, Guatemala Josefina Safar and Olivier Le GuenYucatec Maya Sign Language(s): A sociolinguistic overview Emmanuella Martinod, Brigitte Garcia and Ivani FusellierSign Languages on Marajó Island (Brazil) Ben BraithwaiteSociolinguistic sketch of Providence Island Sign Language Kristian Ali and Ben BraithwaiteBay Islands Sign Language: A Sociolinguistic Sketch Marie CoppolaSociolinguistic sketch: Nicaraguan Sign Language and Homesign Systems in Nicaragua
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