This collected volume showcases cutting-edge research in the rapidly developing area of sign language corpus linguistics in various sign language contexts across the globe. Each chapter provides a detailed account of particular national corpora and methodological considerations in their construction. Part 1 focuses on corpus-based linguistic findings, covering aspects of morphology, syntax, multilingualism, and regional and diachronic variation. Part 2 explores innovative solutions to challenges in building and annotating sign language corpora, touching on the construction of comparable sign language corpora, collaboration challenges at the national level, phonological arrangement of digital lexicons, and (semi-)automatic annotation. This unique volume documenting the growth in breadth and depth within the discipline of sign language corpus linguistics is a key resource for researchers, teachers, and postgraduate students in the field of sign language linguistics, and will also provide valuable insights for other researchers interested in corpus linguistics, Construction Grammar, and gesture studies.

This book brings together a collection of studies on Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). Research on Libras began in earnest 20 years ago, around the time that Libras was recognised as a national language of Brazil in 2002. Over the years, more and more deaf researchers have become sign language linguists, and the community of Libras scholars have documented this language and built robust resources for linguistic research. This book provides a selection of studies by these scholars, representing work in a variety of areas from phonology to creative literature.

This volume reveals new insights on the faculty of language. By proposing a new approach in the analysis and description of Italian Sign Language (LIS), that can be extended also to other sign languages, this book also enlightens some aspects of spoken languages, which were often overlooked in the past and only recently have been brought to the fore and described. First, the study of face-to-face communication leads to a revision of the traditional dichotomy between linguistic and enacted, to develop a new approach to embodied language (Kendon, 2004). Second, all structures of language take on a sociolinguistic and pragmatic meaning, as proposed by cognitive semantics, which considers it impossible to trace a separation between purely linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge. Finally, if speech from the point of view of its materiality is variable, fragile, and non-segmentable (i.e. not systematically discrete), also signs are not always segmentable into discrete, invariable and meaningless units. This then calls into question some of the properties traditionally associated with human languages in general, notably that of ‘duality of patterning’. These are only some of the main issues you will find in this volume that has no parallel both in sign and in spoken languages linguistic research.

Intro to Amer Sign Lang w/ focus on psychological processes involvd in its acquistion & use, as well as the brain bases of ASL. An upper- level txt w/ readership among researchers in cognitve psych & cognitve neuroscience, language & linguistics, speech,

Although a number of edited collections deal with either the languages of the world or the languages of particular regions or genetic families, only a few cover sign languages or even include a substantial amount of information on them. This handbook provides information on some 38 sign languages, including basic facts about each of the languages, structural aspects, history and culture of the Deaf communities, and history of research. This information will be of interest not just to general audiences, including those who are deaf, but also to linguists and students of linguistics. By providing information on sign languages in a manner accessible to a less specialist audience, this volume fills an important gap in the literature.

As the only book of its kind, this book describes the social and historical background of this signed language and places Irish Sign Language in a world context. The Signs of Ireland corpus is used to introduce phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.It also examines the key influences driving signed language linguistics in the past decade, including: recognition of the role of gesture; the influence of cognitive linguistics; the complexities of iconic representation in signing space; the role of simultaneous construction; and the grammar of ISL. All examples listed are drawn from the Signs of Ireland corpus, one of the largest digital corpora of a signed language in Europe, and are included on the accompanying DVD. An essential resource for sign language teachers and interpreters, students of sign linguistics, and learners of ISL in Ireland, this book offers new insights into the role of gesture, spatial models, iconicity, metaphor, and metonymy in ISL grammar, vocabulary and discourse.

Landmark study on the role of gestures in relation to speech and thought.