Ulrike Zeshan

Interrogative and Negative Constructions in Sign Languages

THE FIRST VOLUME IN THE SIGN LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY SERIES includes data on interrogative and negative constructions from 35 sign languages around the world. In a truly pioneering undertaking, the editor and the contributors from eight different countries open up to the reader the universe of typological diversity across sign languages. In-depth studies of questions and negation in six sign languages constitute the central part of the book, augmented by shorter contributions from another four sign languages, as well as an introductory theoretical section. The accompanying CD includes several hundred video clips in easily accessible MPG format. A subject index and original research materials are also included in the book More

Immersive manipulation of virtual objects through glove-based hand gesture interaction

Immersive visualisation is increasingly being used for comprehensive and rapid analysis of objects in 3D and object dynamic behaviour in 4D. Challenges are therefore presented to provide natural user interaction to enable effortless virtual object manipulation. Presented in this paper is the development and evaluation of an immersive human–computer interaction system based on stereoscopic viewing and natural hand gestures. For the development, it is based on the integration of a back-projection stereoscopic system for object and hand display, a hybrid inertial and ultrasonic tracking system to provide the absolute positions and orientations of the user’s head and hands, as well as a pair of high degrees-of-freedom data gloves to provide the relative positions and orientations of digit joints and tips on both hands. For the evaluation, it is based on a two-object scene with a virtual cube and a CT (computed tomography) volume created for demonstration of real-time immersive object manipulation. The system is shown to provide a correct user view of objects and hands in 3D with depth, as well as to enable a user to use a number of simple hand gestures to perform basic object manipulation tasks involving selection, release, translation, rotation and scaling. Also included in the evaluation are some quantitative tests of the system performance in terms of speed and latency.

Dynamic Hand Gesture Tracking and Recognition for Real-Time Immersive Virtual Object Manipulation

Immersive visualisation is increasingly being used for comprehensive and rapid analysis of objects in 3D and object dynamic behaviour in 4D. Challenges are therefore presented to provide natural user interaction to enable effortless virtual object manipulation. Presented in this paper is the development and evaluation of a human-computer interaction system based on natural hand gestures. By employing a hybrid inertial and ultrasonic tracking system to provide the absolute positions and orientations of the user’s head and hands as well as a pair of high degrees-of-freedoms data gloves to provide the relative positions and orientations of finger joints and tips in both hands, the proposed system is shown to be able to automatically track and recognise a number of simple hand gestures. The effectiveness and potential of the proposed system is demonstrated through the five basic object manipulation tasks involving selection, release, translation, rotation and scaling of a 3D virtual cube.

Cardinal numerals in rural sign languages: Approaching cross-modal typology

Abstract This article presents data on cardinal numerals in three sign languages from small-scale communities with hereditary deafness. The unusual features found in these data considerably extend the known range of typological variety across sign languages. Some features, such as non-decimal numeral bases, are unattested in sign languages, but familiar from spoken languages, while others, such as subtractive sub-systems, are rare in sign and speech. We conclude that for a complete typological appraisal of a domain, an approach to cross-modal typology, which includes a typologically diverse range of sign languages in addition to spoken languages, is both instructive and feasible.

Making meaning: Communication between sign language users without a shared language

Abstract In a small group of deaf sign language users from different countries and with no shared language, the signers’ initial conversational interactions are investigated as they meet in pairs for the very first time. This case study allows for a unique insight into the initial stages of pidginisation and the conceptual processes involved. The participants use a wide range of linguistic and communicative resources, and it can be argued that they construct shared multilingual-multimodal cognitive spaces for the purpose of these conversations. This research explores the nature of these shared multilingual-multimodal spaces, how they are shaped by the signers in interaction, and how they can be understood in terms of conceptual blending. The research also focuses on the meta-linguistic skills that signers use in these multilingual-multimodal interactions to “make meaning”.

Hand Motion Recognition and Visualisation for Direct Sign Writing

Although SignWriting provides an intuitive notation system based on pictorial symbols to enable any sign based language in the world to be transcribed into a written form, it is a time consuming process for keyboard based input. To address the challenge of direct sign writing, the paper presents a human-computer-interaction system developed for recognition and visualisation of hand movements. The system is shown to be able to display the corresponding SignWriting symbols for various hand movements performed by two hands based on motion characteristics such as movement planes, movement directions, straight/curve movement paths, clockwise/anti-clockwise movements, and single/repeated movements.

Sign language of the world

Although sign language-using communities exist in all areas of the world, few sign languages have been documented in detail. Sign languages occur in a variety of sociocultural contexts, ranging from sign languages used in closed village communities to officially recognized national sign languages. They may be grouped into language families on historical grounds or may participate in various language contact situations. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison reveals both significant structural similarities and important typological differences between sign languages. Focusing on information from non-Western countries, this article provides an overview of the sign languages of the world.

Sign-speaking: The structure of simultaneous bimodal utterances

Abstract We present data from a bimodal trilingual situation involving Indian Sign Language (ISL), Hindi and English. Signers are co-using these languages while in group conversations with deaf people and hearing non-signers. The data show that in this context, English is an embedded language that does not impact on the grammar of the utterances, while both ISL and Hindi structures are realised throughout. The data show mismatches between the simultaneously expressed ISL and Hindi, such that semantic content and/or syntactic structures are different in both languages, yet are produced at the same time. The data also include instances of different propositions expressed simultaneously in the two languages. This under-documented behaviour is called “sign-speaking” here, and we explore its implications for theories of multilingualism, code-switching, and bilingual language production.

Sign language typology

[Extract] Australia is a fascinating linguistic area. At the time of the European invasion, which began in 1788, there were around 250 distinct languages. Many more than half of them are no longer actively spoken or remembered. No more than a dozen could be said to be in a healthy state, being fully learned by children. From about 120,000 until about 7,000 BP, Australia and New Guinea were one land mass. Archaeologists tell us that the first settlers arrived at least 40,000 years and probably 50,000 years ago. There would have been an initial expansion of people - during which tribes and languages split - until they filled all habitable parts of the land mass. At the end of this period of expansion (which is likely to have taken just a few thousand years), a family tree diagram would have appropriately modelled the relationships between languages.Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expertise of a stellar selection of scholars, this Handbook highlights linguistic typology as a major discipline within the field of linguistics.Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expertise of a stellar selection of scholars, this Handbook highlights linguistic typology as a major discipline within the field of linguistics.Grammatical means for the linguistic categorization of noun referents are found in just about every language of the world. Noun categorization devices range from large sets of numeral classifiers of Southeast Asia to highly grammaticalized closed sets of noun classes and genders in African and Indo-European languages. Further devices include noun classifiers, classifiers in possessive constructions, verbal classifiers and two less known types: locative and deictic classifiers. Classifiers share semantic features of animacy, humanness, shape and function. One language can combine several types of noun categorization devices. In ‘multiple classifier’ languages, the same morphemes occur in several grammatical contexts. Historically, categorization devices of one type can develop from another.

Task-response times, facilitating and inhibiting factors in cross-signing

Abstract This paper reports on data from the “cross-signing” strand of a research project on Sign Multilingualism. Cross-signing investigates the ad-hoc improvised conversations of small groups of deaf sign language users who do not have fluency in any shared language. Participants were filmed in pairs when they met for the very first time, and after a contact period of 4–6 weeks together as a group. The deaf signers involved in this study are from the UK, Jordan, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Nepal. All signers are highly fluent in their own sign language, with varying competence in a language of literacy from their home country, but minimal or no overlapping competence in International Sign, English, or any other shared language between them. The participants used a wide range of multilingual and multimodal communicative resources, including their own and invented signs, fingerspelling, pointing, mouthing, gesture/mime, and various representations of writing. The article considers quantitative data from signed interactions during a picture-based elicitation game. While the overall response times taken by participants for completing the elicitation game are reduced at the end of the contact period compared to the initial contact, differentiating factors are at work that lead to different degrees of response time reduction in the individual signers. As a step towards explaining these patterns, the article explores insights into factors that may inhibit or facilitate communication between cross-signers, such as extent of contact between signers, typological distance between sign languages, or the use of literacy. Moreover, the data suggest a cumulative impact of these factors.