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…

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…

This article presents a comparison of constructions used to express size and shape in cospeech gesture and in two village sign languages. The analysis focuses on body part size and shape constructions found in the gestures of speakers of Anyi (Côte d'Ivoire), in the emerging sign language of Bouakako (Côte d'Ivoire), and the older,…

This article provides an ethnographic analysis of "deaf sociality" in Adamorobe, a village in Ghana, where the relatively high prevalence of hereditary deafness has led to dense social and spatial connections. Deaf people are part of their hearing environment particularly through family networks, and produce deaf sociality through many…