The acquisition of Sign Language: The impact of phonetic complexity on phonology

Research into the effect of phonetic complexity on phonological acquisition has a long history in spoken languages. This paper considers the effect of phonetics on phonological development in a signed language. We report on an experiment in which nonword-repetition methodology was adapted so as to examine in a systematic way how phonetic complexity in two phonological parameters of signed languages — handshape and movement — affects the perception and articulation of signs. Ninety-one Deaf children aged 3–11 acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) and 46 hearing nonsigners aged 6–11 repeated a set of 40 nonsense signs. For Deaf children, repetition accuracy improved with age, correlated with wider BSL abilities, and was lowest for signs that were phonetically complex. Repetition accuracy was correlated with fine motor skills for the youngest children. Despite their lower repetition accuracy, the hearing group were similarly affected by phonetic complexity, suggesting that common visual and motoric factors are at play when processing linguistic information in the visuo-gestural modality

Building an Assessment Use Argument for sign language: the BSL Nonsense Sign Repetition Test

In this article, we adapt a concept designed to structure language testing more effectively, the Assessment Use Argument (AUA), as a framework for the development and/or use of sign language assessments for deaf children who are taught in a sign bilingual education setting. By drawing on data from a recent investigation of deaf children's nonsense sign repetition skills in British Sign Language, we demonstrate the steps of implementing the AUA in practical test design, development and use. This approach provides us with a framework which clearly states the competing values and which stakeholders hold these values. As such, it offers a useful foundation for test-designers, as well as for practitioners in sign bilingual education, for the interpretation of test scores and the consequences of their use

Evaluating a Swiss German Sign Language Avatar among the Deaf Community

This paper reports on an evaluation of an avatar for Swiss German Sign Language (Deutschschweizerische Gebärdensprache, DSGS) by native signers of this language. The avatar is the final output of a machine translation system which is being built to translate in real time German announcements of the Swiss Federal Railways (Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, SBB) into DSGS. An existing software, JASigning, is used to automatically generate the avatar animations. The evaluation data is from a focus group with seven Deaf signers who provided feedback on how to improve the DSGS avatar. They identified several aspects that had to be modified: Among them were the color of the avatar's clothing and the background, the direction of the avatar's default eyegaze, the speed of fingerspelling and mouthings, the temporal coordination of the manual and non-manual components of a sign, and the handling of lists of signs. These aspects are not just relevant for train announcements in DSGS, but for data of other kinds and other sign languages as well

The lexicon of the conductor’s gaze

This work presents two studies investigating the existence of a lexicon of gaze in conducting, and its possible different mastery in musicians and laypeople. An observational qualitative study singled out 17 items of gaze used by Conductors in music rehearsal and concert, conveying interactional, affective and musical meanings to musicians in the ensemble, and exploiting four semiotic devices: the Conductor may use the same gaze types as laypeople and with the same meaning (generic codified), or with meaning more specific of musical performance (specific codified), and directly or indirectly iconic gaze items. In a subsequent perceptual study, 8 of the gaze items singled out were submitted to 177 between musicians and naïf subjects asking them to interpret their meanings through open and closed questions. Results show that some gaze items, especially those conveying intensity (piano, forte) and other technical indications (high note, attack) are fairly recognized; yet, no significant differences result between expert and naïf subjects. Gaze constitutes a lexicon also in music performance and exploits the same semiotic devices as gaze in everyday life

Making Sense of the Hands and Mouth: The Role of Secondary Cues to Meaning in British Sign Language and English

Successful face-to-face communication involves multiple channels, notably hand gestures in addition to speech for spoken language, and mouth patterns in addition to manual signs for sign language. In four experiments, we assess the extent to which comprehenders of British Sign Language (BSL) and English rely, respectively, on cues from the hands and the mouth in accessing meaning. We created congruent and incongruent combinations of BSL manual signs and mouthings and English speech and gesture by video manipulation and asked participants to carry out a picture-matching task. When participants were instructed to pay attention only to the primary channel, incongruent secondary cues still affected performance, showing that these are reliably used for comprehension. When both cues were relevant, the languages diverged: Hand gestures continued to be used in English, but mouth movements did not in BSL. Moreover, non-fluent speakers and signers varied in the use of these cues: Gestures were found to be more important for non-native than native speakers; mouth movements were found to be less important for non-fluent signers. We discuss the results in terms of the information provided by different communicative channels, which combine to provide meaningful information