New puplication: "A cross-linguistic comparison of reference across five signed languages"
Researchers from five different countries present a study about how to express who or what you are talking about in five national sign languages. Johanna Mesch, professor of sign language at Stockholm University, is one of the seven researchers behind the article.
The study compared how signers of five Western deaf signed languages coordinate fully conventionalized forms with more richly improvised semiotics to identify and talk about referents of varying agency. The five languages are Auslan, Irish Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language, Norwegian Sign Language, and Swedish Sign Language. Using ten retellings of the fairy tale Frog, Where Are You? from each language, the researchers analyzed tokens of referring expressions with respect to: (a) activation status (new vs. maintained vs. re-introduced); (b) semiotic strategy (e.g., pointing sign, fingerspelling, enactment); and (c) animacy (human vs. animal vs. inanimate object). Statistical analysis reveals many similarities and some differences across the languages.
The article is published in Linguistic Typology and is available online:
The purpose of this project is to form a network of Nordic signed language (SL) researchers. The project includes Swedish sign language, Norwegian sign language and the two sign languages in Finland.
