Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 13, Issue 2, 2010

This study contains the results of an experiment in which signers were asked to judge the acceptability of a set of sign manipulations. Signs were recorded with variations in different categories, in the temporal and spatial dimension. Participants varied much in tolerance, i.e. in the percentage of movies they judged to be acceptable, but their rankings of the acceptability of sign manipulations correlated well. On the level of dimensionality, we found that temporal manipulations were highly acceptable while spatial (and spatiotemporal) manipulations were often judged unacceptable. Further division of the manipulations into categories, such as changes in hand orientation or movement direction, showed much variability and little regularity. The roles of phonology and iconicity in acceptability judgments were studied. Part of the variability in the acceptability of sign manipulations could be explained on the basis of the type of phonological error caused by each manipulation, and by considering a sign’s iconicity and classifying whether manipulations are compatible or incompatible with that iconicity. Finally, human judgments were compared to acceptability ratings by three automatic sign recognizers for three of the signs. With some exceptions, the rankings of the acceptability of sign manipulations as calculated by these sign recognizers did not correlate well with the rankings by humans.

This paper discusses the role of iconicity in sign language phonology by utilizing recently developed tools available in the areas of phonological contrast and feature distribution. In particular, we explain the degree to which iconic elements of handshape interact with the feature system of sign language handshapes in different components of the lexicon, by making specific reference to handshape features that specify joint position. We then discuss similarities and differences between signed languages and spoken languages and the implications for a theory of features that might adequately capture phenomena in both communication modalities. Although cross-linguistic data have been collected and analyzed in this regard, we focus on data from American Sign Language in this work.

Early acquisition of a natural language, signed or spoken, has been shown to fundamentally impact both one’s ability to use the first language, and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life (Mayberry 2007, 2009). This review summarizes a number of recent neuroimaging studies in order to detail the neural bases of sign language acquisition. The logic of this review is to present research reports that contribute to the bigger picture showing that people who acquire a natural language, spoken or signed, in the normal way possess specialized linguistic abilities and brain functions that are missing or deficient in people whose exposure to natural language is delayed or absent. Comparing the function of each brain region with regards to the processing of spoken and sign languages, we attempt to clarify the role each region plays in language processing in general, and to outline the challenges and remaining questions in understanding language processing in the brain.