Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) is an extinct village sign language hypothesized to be a sister of British Sign Language (BSL) and a significant contributor to early American Sign Language (ASL) (Groce 1985). After the last deaf MVSL signer died, signs were elicited from five hearing signers. This study analyzes that data through a series…

Visual manifestations of an object that moves from one place to another are common in sign languages. Here, we offer an overview of techniques for conveying motion of an entity based on an examination of storytelling and poetry in seven sign languages. The signer can use embodiment and/or classifiers to show translocating movement of an object, or…

Variation occurs in sign languages, just as in spoken languages. Lexical variation is very common and has been related to individual schools for the deaf, so-called "schoolization," rather than only to region or other common sociolinguistic factors, such as gender, social class, etc. (Baker et al. 2016). This study investigates lexical…

Signs in sign languages have been mainly analyzed as composed of three formational elements: hand configuration, location, and movement. Researchers compare and contrast lexical differences and similarities among different signs and languages based on these formal elements. Such measurement requires extensive manual annotation of each feature…

Reiterative code-switching, when one lexical item from one language is produced immediately after a semantically equivalent lexical item in another language, is a frequent phenomenon in studies of language contact. Several spoken language studies suggest that reiteration functions as a form of accommodation, amplification (emphasis),…

This article discusses the positioning of "wh" words in Modern Laos Sign Language. Research indicates that there are two common patterns for the position of "wh" words in spoken languages: the initial position and in situ (Dryer 2013). However, in some sign languages, it seems that "wh" word positioning is…

This article presents the results of a microanalysis of sequences when two or more deaf signers overlap. This contribution focuses on "cooperative overlap" - which consists of extended moments of turn-exchanges that move along the unfolding discourse while cohering interlocutors in relation to each other. This aspect of signed…

The term "repair" refers to strategies deployed by language users to resolve breakdowns in communication. In this study, I ask what strategies for conversational repair are deployed, and who takes responsibility for their execution, when a language is used in a small local signing ecology. I focus on signers from a single family within a…

This study contributes to research in the field of phonology of sign languages, focusing on the occurrence of assimilation of signs. The objective of the study is to analyze assimilation cases present in the text genre "joke" in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), as well as influences of the immediate context on their occurrence. We…

Maritime Sign Language (MSL) is a Canadian, minority sign language that originally stems from British Sign Language (BSL). Currently used by elderly Deaf people in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland (and Labrador), it is a moribund language, having undergone language shift to American Sign Language (ASL). MSL is…

We investigate the contact situation between Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and Kufr Qassem Sign Language (KQSL) in a bilingual deaf community in Israel. We examine one outcome of language contact, known as reiteration--when two semantically equivalent lexical items from two different languages are produced sequentially. Until now, reiteration has…

Name sign systems have been described in many deaf communities around the world. The most frequent name sign types are associated with an individual's appearance, for example, a signers' hairstyle, clothes, and physical features such as height, weight, etc. However, a recent study that examined name signs in Swedish Sign Language, for example,…

This work categorizes Japanese Sign Language (JSL) toponyms, or place names, and examines factors that potentially affect their structure. Exonyms, influenced by the source Japanese name, and endonyms, independent JSL names, contrast structurally in that exonyms tend to emerge as compounds while endonyms conform more closely to canonical…

We present one of the first detailed studies on hesitation marking in a sign language. Based on the analysis of a set of monologues and dialogues from the "Corpus NGT" (Crasborn and Zwitserlood 2008; Crasborn, Zwitserlood, and Ros 2008), we describe the form and position of manual and nonmanual markers of hesitation in Sign Language of…

The linguistic and cognitive importance of early language exposure for deaf children is well reported in the literature. However, most of such studies have been conducted in industrialized countries with less of such studies conducted in developing and nonindustrialized countries such as Ghana. Therefore, hinged on the social interactionist theory…