The field of language documentation continues to grow, but an historic split between sign language documentation and spoken language documentation persists. In order to fully understand the linguistic context within a community, it can be necessary to overcome this split by designing language documentation projects to address threatened and…

This article makes a case for the existence of a minority language hierarchy in New Zealand. Based on an analysis of language ideologies expressed in recent policy documents and interviews with policymakers and representatives of minority language communities, it presents the arguments forwarded in support of the promotion of different types of…

This survey gives an overview of research into language teaching and learning in New Zealand over a five-year period, including the context of that research. The majority of New Zealanders are monolingual English speakers, yet the country faces complex linguistic challenges arising from its bicultural foundations and the multicultural society it…

Discusses the Brazilian Sign language digital encyclopedia, which contains a databank of 5,600 signs glossed in Portuguese and English, along with descriptions and illustrations of their signed form. (Author/VWL)

Exploration of two sign languages independently employed by two isolated deaf signers in a single northern India village found that both languages included such negative structure elements as context-dependence, multichannels, and nondiscrete, ambiguous signs. One signer, strongly embedded in close relationships that formed a tiny speech…

This volume contains an index to volumes 18-38 (1974-1994) of the "Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics" (Stephen A. Marlett and J. Albert Bickford) as well as the following 1995 papers: "Laryngeal Licensing and Syllable Well-formedness in Quiengolani Zapotec" (Cherly A. Black); "A Grammar Sketch of the Kaki…

Briefly describes five dictionaries of the signed languages used in Australia, Mexico, Italy, New Zealand, and Thailand. (CB)

Demographic study of the number of deaf users of Australian Sign Language (Auslan) identified over 15,000 deaf who used Auslan daily in interactions with deaf and hearing persons, and evidence of strong social and linguistic cohesion in the deaf community, but high levels of unemployment and underemployment. (16 references) (Author/CB)

This paper provides an analysis of the manual and non-manual pronouns identified in Mexican Sign Language (MSL) used by a female speaker in 1993, discusses syntactic uses of each type, and examines pronoun deletion. MSL has two distinct modes of expressing pronominal relationships: manual pronouns (including indexical, incorporated, classifiers,…

Reports on the progress of a project to produce a dictionary of the Jicarilla Apache language. Jicarilla, an Eastern Apachean language is spoken on the Jicarilla Apache reservation in Northern New Mexico. The project has revealed much about the role of literacy in language standardization and in speaker empowerment. Suggests that many parallels…

A survey of Australian teachers of the deaf and their classroom communicative practices found that many used speech with sign and most used Australasian Signed English, with most able to demonstrate that they could correctly encode the system. (six references) (Author/CB)

Evaluates the contribution of visuo-gestural modality versus linguistic factors in determining the order of elements in sign language. The results of a study show that Italian Sign Language differs along significant lines from both spoken Italian and pantomime. (22 references) (GLR)

A dictionary of Thai sign language outlines and illustrates the vocabulary and structure of the sign language used by the deaf community throughout Thailand. It reflects the Thai lexical structure, with the signs arranged into six basic sign groups (movement verbs, oppositions, negation, verb tenses, dimensions, and a category containing days,…

A study of dialectal variation in Mexican Sign Language (MSL), the primary language for a large segment of Mexico's deaf community, is presented. Signs used by nine different sources representing various locations, ages, and social groups are compared. The first section reviews a number of previous informal assessments of dialectal variation in…

Ways in which the lexicon of Irish Sign Language (ISL) has developed, and how it is being continually extended, are examined. Change occurs in several ways. Research to date indicates that there are 59 basic handshapes, from which all vocabulary items are created. Classifiers are used extensively in the nominal and verbal system of ISL, and 15 of…