In the context of these proposals, language is described as a highly systematized form of action that relies on the same simulation mechanisms. By deriving a motor command for an observed stimulus, and engaging in covert imitation, individuals can predictively represent the outcome of unfolding action as a Forward Model. Motor simulation has emerged as a mechanism for both predictive action perception and language comprehension. We review some long-standing claims about the lexical distribution of signs in light of this new measure, as well as propose possible future applications.
It is shown that within a particular database of American Sign Language (ASL-Lex: Caselli et al., 2017), the number of hands involved in a sign's production along with movement-either transitional movement due to differences in major location, or major movement due to phonologically contrastive differences in the sign's identity-each contribute significantly to the overall visible amplitude in the sign. After a review of the literature that demonstrates how certain sub-lexical characteristics of signs (location, movement, and the number of hands employed) make signs 'stand out' phonetically, phonologically, and prosodically, the ability of visible amplitude to capture the effects of these characteristics is examined. This paper introduces a novel measure, visible amplitude, which provides a way to quantify the amount of movement contained on a frame-by-frame basis in a video, and as such, can be used as one measure of prominence. While there has been some prior work on what characteristics can increase or decrease the phonetic prominence of a sign in a signed language, there is not yet an easily obtainable, objective measure that can be used to help quantify signal-based aspects of sign language prominence. Most sign phonetics research is quantitative and lab-based. Similarly, studies of sign perception have recorded participants' ability to identify and discriminate signs, depending, for example, on slight variations in the signs' forms or differences in the participants' language background. Some studies have collected kinematic limb movement data during signing and carried out quantitative analyses of sign production related to, for example, signing rate, phonetic environment, or phrase position. Most studies of sign phonetics have been based on careful analyses of video data.
What sets sign phonetics apart from the phonetics of spoken languages is that the two language modalities use different mechanisms of production and perception, which could in turn result in structural differences between modalities. The production and perception of a sign language can be influenced by phrase structure, linguistic register, the signer's linguistic back ground, the visual perception mechanism, the anatomy and physiology of the hands and arms, and many other factors. Sign phonetics research can focus on individual lexical signs or on the movements of the nonmanual articulators that accompany those signs. Most research on sign phonetics has focused on American Sign Language (ASL), but there are many different sign languages around the world, and several of these, including British Sign Language, Taiwan Sign Language, and Sign Language of the Netherlands, have been studied at the level of phonetics. Recent approaches in sign language historical linguistics are highlighted and future directions for research are suggested to address the problems discussed in this review.Īnd Keywords Sign phonetics is the study of how sign languages are produced and perceived, by native as well as by non-native signers. It is suggested that the theoretical notions underlying these terms do not straightforwardly map onto the historical development of many sign languages. The review examines the field's development through the lens of two related problems pertaining to how we understand sign language relationships and to our understanding of cognacy, as the term pertains to signs.
This review focuses on the development of sign language historical linguistics since Stokoe, including the field's significant progress and the theoretical and methodological problems that it still faces. Stokoe thus contributed to the theoretical foundations upon which the field of sign language historical linguistics would later develop. In contrast to scholars and signers in the nineteenth century, William Stokoe conceived of American Sign Language (ASL) as a unique linguistic tradition with roots in nineteenth-century langue des signes française, a conception that is apparent in his earliest scholarship on ASL.