Brazilian Sign Language Studies

Brazilian Sign Language Studies
Author: Ronice Müller de Quadros
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2020-08-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501507818

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.

Person and Number

Person and Number
Author: Raquel Veiga Busto
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2023-07-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110989190

Person and number are two basic grammatical categories. However, they have not yet been exhaustively documented in many sign languages. This volume presents a thorough description of the form and interpretation of person and number in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) personal pronouns. This is the first book exploring together the two categories (and their interaction) in a sign language. Building on a combination of elicitation methods and corpus data analysis, this book shows that person and number are encoded through a set of distinctive phonological features: person is formally marked through spatial features, and number by the path specifications of the sign. Additionally, this study provides evidence that the same number marker might have a different semantic import depending on the person features with which it is combined. Results of this investigation contribute fresh data to cross-linguistic studies on person and number, which are largely based on evidence from spoken language only. Furthermore, while this research identifies a number of significant differences with respect to prior descriptions of person and number in other sign languages, it also demonstrates that, from a typological standpoint, the array of distinctions that LSC draws within each category is not exceptional.

Sign Languages of the World

Sign Languages of the World
Author: Julie Bakken Jepsen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 1086
Release: 2015-10-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 150150102X

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.

The Meaning of Space in Sign Language

The Meaning of Space in Sign Language
Author: Gemma Barberà Altimira
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2015-07-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501500554

Bringing together sign language linguistics and the semantics-pragmatics interface, this book focuses on the use of signing space in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). On the basis of small-scale corpus data, it provides an exhaustive description of referential devices dependent on space. The book provides insight into the study of meaning in the visual-spatial modality and into our understanding of the discourse behavior of spatial locations.

Many Ways to be Deaf

Many Ways to be Deaf
Author: Leila Frances Monaghan
Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2003
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781563681356

Table of contents

Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights

Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights
Author: Douglas A. Kibbee
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 433
Release: 1998-08-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027275076

The contributions to this volume cover a broad range of issues in language policy that are hotly debated in every corner of the globe. The articles included investigate the implications of language policies on the notion of language rights as the issues are played out in very specific circumstances — from the courtroom in Australia to the legislature in California to the educational system in England to the administrative practices of the European Commission. The authors explore conflicts between basic conceptions of fairness in justice, administration and education on the one hand, and political and economic realities on the other. Articles focus on langage issues in the United States, Canada, Brazil, England, France, Slovakia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Australia and several African states. Other articles consider the implications of new supernational agreements — the European Union, NAFTA, GATT, the OAU — on language issues in the signatory states. In sum the volume offers an extensive presentation of current issues and practices in language policy and linguistic human rights.

Deaf Around the World

Deaf Around the World
Author: Gaurav Mathur
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2011-01-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 019973254X

The articles in Deaf around the World offer an introduction to deaf studies and the study of signed languages.

Bibliographie Linguistique de L'annee 1999

Bibliographie Linguistique de L'annee 1999
Author: Mark Janse
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 1484
Release: 2003
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781402017162

Setting out the historical national and religious characteristics of the Italians as they impact on the integration within the European Union, this study makes note of the two characteristics that have an adverse effect on Italian national identity: cleavages between north and south and the dominant role of family. It discusses how for Italians family loyalty is stronger than any other allegiance, including feelings towards their country, their nation, or the EU. Due to such subnational allegiances and values, this book notes that Italian civic society is weaker and engagement at the grass roots is less robust than one finds in other democracies, leaving politics in Italy largely in the hands of political parties. The work concludes by noting that EU membership, however, provides no magic bullet for Italy: it cannot change internal cleavages, the Italian worldview, and family values or the country’s mafia-dominated power matrix, and as a result, the underlying absence of fidelity to a shared polity—Italian or European—leave the country as ungovernable as ever.

Sign Language

Sign Language
Author: Roland Pfau
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 1140
Release: 2012-08-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110261324

Sign language linguists show here that all questions relevant to the linguistic investigation of spoken languages can be asked about sign languages. Conversely, questions that sign language linguists consider - even if spoken language researchers have not asked them yet - should also be asked of spoken languages. The HSK handbook Sign Language aims to provide a concise and comprehensive overview of the state of the art in sign language linguistics. It includes 44 chapters, written by leading researchers in the field, that address issues in language typology, sign language grammar, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language documentation and transcription. Crucially, all topics are presented in a way that makes them accessible to linguists who are not familiar with sign language linguistics.