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Tutorial: Sign Language Linguistics

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Language, Logic, and Computation (TbiLLC 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13206))

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Abstract

This tutorial offers a brief overview of linguistic research into sign languages. The tutorial’s target audiences are people with some background in linguistics of spoken languages. For the sake of brevity, I will only concentrate on some major topics. I will briefly introduce sign languages, discuss some basics of phonological structure of these types of languages (including the use of space), discuss some new findings on the syntax of sign languages, and, finally, will briefly address some methodological issues. The majority of data will come from German Sign Language, although data from other sign languages is also included.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A hyphen between two glosses, as in at-home, indicates that we are dealing with one single manual sign that translates into several English words.

  2. 2.

    The sign pam is an abbreviation for “person agreement marker” (Rathmann 2003) and is sometimes thought to be used for differential object marking (Bross 2020a).

  3. 3.

    Note that there is also a lot of variation concerning the exact realization of which in German Sign Language. Another reason for the variation found with this construction might also be an influence from spoken German. Thus, with formal testing it is also be important to collect data on linguistic competence.

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  1. University of Stuttgart, Keplerstr. 17, 70174, Stuttgart, Germany

    Fabian Bross

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  1. Fabian Bross
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Correspondence to Fabian Bross .

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  1. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Aybüke Özgün

  2. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Yulia Zinova

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Bross, F. (2022). Tutorial: Sign Language Linguistics. In: Özgün, A., Zinova, Y. (eds) Language, Logic, and Computation. TbiLLC 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13206. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98479-3_2

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