Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages

by Edited by Richard P. Meier , Kearsy Cormier , David Quinto-Pozos

• ISBN13: 9780521112581
• ISBN10: 0521112583
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-04
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The realisation that signed languages are true languages is one of the great discoveries of the last 30 years of linguistic research. The work of many sign language researchers has revealed deep similarities between signed and spoken languages in their structure, acquisition and processing, as well as differences, arising from the differing articulatory and perceptual constraints under which signed languages are used and learned. This book provides a cross-linguistic examination of the properties of many signed languages, including detailed case studies of Hong Kong, British, Mexican and German sign languages. The contributions to this volume, by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, focus on a single question: to what extent is linguistic structure influenced by the modality of language? Their answers offer particular insights into the factors that shape the nature of language and contribute to our understanding of why languages are organised as they are.

Table of Contents

Why different, why the same? Explaining effects and non-effects of modality upon linguistic structure in sign and speech

Phonological Structure in Signed Languages

Modality differences in sign language phonology and morphophonemics

Beads on a string? Representations of repetition in spoken and signed languages

Psycholinguistic investigations of phonological structure in American Sign Language

Modality-dependent aspects of sign language production: evidence from slips of the hands and their repairs in German Sign Language

The role of manually coded English in language development of deaf children

Gesture and Iconicity in Sign and Speech

A modality-free notion of gesture and how it can help us with the morpheme vs. gesture question in sign language linguistics (or at least give us some criteria to work with)

Gesture as the substrate in the process of ASL grammaticization

A cross-linguistic examination of the lexicons of four signed languages

Syntax in Sign: Few or No Effects of Modality

Where are all the modality effects?

Applying morphosyntactic and phonological readjustment rules in natural language negation

Nominal expressions in Hong Kong Sign Language: does modality make a difference?

Using Space and Describing Space

Pronominal reference in signed and spoken language: are grammatical categories modality-dependent?

Is verb agreement the same cross-modally?

The effects of modality on spatial language: how signers and speakers talk about space

The effects of modality on BSL development in an exceptional learner

Deictic points in the visual/gestural and tactile/gestural modalities

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