When You CAN See the Difference: The Phonetic Basis of Sonority in American Sign Language

Spoken and signed languages (SL) deliver perceptual cues which exhibit various degrees of perceptual validity during categorization: In spoken languages, listeners develop perceptual biases when integrating multiple acoustic dimensions during auditory categorization (Holt & Lotto, 2006). This leads us to expect differential perceptual validity for dynamic gestural units HANDSHAPE, MOVEMENT, ORIENTATION, and LOCATION produced by manual articulators in SLs. In this study, we use a closed-set sentence discrimination task developed by Bochner et al. (2011) to evaluate the perceptual saliency of the gestural components of signs in American Sign Language (ASL) for naiïve signers and deaf L2 learners of ASL proficient in another SL. Our goal is to gauge which of these features are likely to present the phonetic basis of sonority in sign modality and relay phonemic contrasts perceptible for even first-time signers.25 deaf L2 ASL signers and 28 hearing English speakers with no experience in any SL participated in this study. Results reveal that phonemic contrasts based on HANDSHAPE presented an area of maximum difficulty in phonological discrimination for sign-naïve participants. For all participants, contrasts based on ORIENTATION and LOCATION and involving larger scale articulators, were associated with robust categorical discrimination

Acquisition of phonology in child Icelandic Sign Language: Unique findings

Research shows that acquisition of sign language phonology is a developmental process and involves multiple articulatory cues. Among these cues, handshape has been shown to be crucial and orientation has been argued to be potentially disregardable as being internal to sign production rather than encoding a minimal contrast. We administered a non-word repetition task and a picture naming task to 17 (age 3-15) deaf and hard-of-hearing signers of Icelandic Sign Language (ÍTM) – an endangered indigenous language of the Deaf community in Iceland – targeting the same articulatory features. The tasks were modeled after similar assessment tools for other languages. All of the participants use ÍTM for daily activities at school and at home; the vast majority were early learners (before 36ms). Results show an upward trajectory in the non-word repetition task scores but without a ceiling effect. Contrary to predictions, no effect of handshape was observed.  Instead, on both pseudo- and real-word tasks, the majority of errors were in orientation/mirroring. The results suggest that orientation plays a non-trivial role in acquisition of sign language phonolog

How to Ensure Bilingualism/Biliteracy in an Indigenous Context: The Case of Icelandic Sign Language

The paper discusses the implementation of a bilingual education language policy in the context of endangered indigenous sign language—Icelandic Sign Language (íslenskt táknmál, ÍTM). Unlike other indigenous endangered languages (e.g., Sámi), or other sign languages (e.g., American Sign Language, ASL), ÍTM has received certain recognition typically associated with equitable language policy—by law, it is considered the “first language” of the deaf/hard of hearing Icelanders; further, Iceland overtly states that ÍTM-signing children must be educated bilingually. However, we show that as a country that has committed itself to linguistic equality as well as the support of indigenous languages under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, Iceland still has a way to go—both in terms of language attitudes and the associated implementations. We analyze the current situation focusing on the issues of bilingualism and biliteracy (vis-à-vis indigeneity and endangerment), explain the reason for the state of affairs by contextualizing the barrier to both for signers, and offer an explicit path forward which articulates the responsibilities of the power structures as well as potential outcomes related to revitalization, should these responsibilities be fulfilled

How to Ensure Bilingualism/Biliteracy in an Indigenous Context: The Case of Icelandic Sign Language

The paper discusses the implementation of a bilingual education language policy in the context of endangered indigenous sign language—Icelandic Sign Language (íslenskt táknmál, ÍTM). Unlike other indigenous endangered languages (e.g., Sámi), or other sign languages (e.g., American Sign Language, ASL), ÍTM has received certain recognition typically associated with equitable language policy—by law, it is considered the “first language” of the deaf/hard of hearing Icelanders; further, Iceland overtly states that ÍTM-signing children must be educated bilingually. However, we show that as a country that has committed itself to linguistic equality as well as the support of indigenous languages under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, Iceland still has a way to go—both in terms of language attitudes and the associated implementations. We analyze the current situation focusing on the issues of bilingualism and biliteracy (vis-à-vis indigeneity and endangerment), explain the reason for the state of affairs by contextualizing the barrier to both for signers, and offer an explicit path forward which articulates the responsibilities of the power structures as well as potential outcomes related to revitalization, should these responsibilities be fulfilled