Spoken language has a well-known drive for ease of articulation, which Kirchner (1998, 2004) analyzes as reduction of the total magnitude of all biomechanical forces involved. We extend Kirchner's insights from vocal articulation to manual articulation, with a focus on joint usage, and we discuss ways that articulatory ease might be realized in sign languages. In particular, moving more joints and/or joints more proximal to the torso results in greater mass being moved, and thus more articulatory force being expended, than moving fewer joints or moving more distal joints. We predict that in casual conversation, where articulatory ease is prized, moving fewer joints should be favored over moving more, and moving distal joints should be favored over moving proximal joints. We report on the results of our study of the casual signing of fluent signers of American Sign Language, which confirm our predictions: in comparison to citation forms of signs, the casual variants produced by the signers in our experiment exhibit an overall decrease in average joint usage, as well as a general preference for more distal articulation than is used in citation form. We conclude that all language, regardless of modality, is shaped by a fundamental drive for ease of articulation. Our work advances a cross-modality approach for considering ease of articulation, develops a potentially important vocabulary for describing variations in signs, and demonstrates that American Sign Language exhibits variation that can be accounted for in terms of ease of articulation. We further suggest that the linguistic drive for ease of articulation is part of a broader tendency for the human body to reduce biomechanical effort in all physical activities.*

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The resinographer studies the morphology and structure of resins to relate the static properties and dynamic behavior of the resins to their composition and history. Toward this end, he has an ever-increasing list of tools at his command. The study of the photoelastic patterns produced in resins by strain, historically one of the older tools, merits an important place in this list. This paper describes two helpful techniques for the study of photoelastic phenomena in resins.

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The objective of this case study is to consider the role of pupil talk in the translation of Latin. I consider that ‘talk’ within the Latin classroom is an important pedagogical tool to support the development of pupil knowledge and understanding and to promote independent learning. Firstly, I am particularly interested in pupils’ early acquisition of the Latin language through ‘talk’. In this study, I wanted to explore how they use talk to support each other and the issues they encounter, the use of available and additional support resources and the extent of grammatical terminology within their talk. With the latter, I was curious to investigate how much terminology infiltrated pupils’ speech, or indeed if it was absent, and the subsequent effect both of these might have. The oral translation of Latin is an accepted and traditional part of learning for pupils. Throughout my PGCE teacher training course, I have observed that the majority of pupils frequently and independently consult or choose to work with another pupil when translating. I considered it was both a valid and valuable learning strategy to explore and analyse in some depth. Such research would provide a constructive insight into this accepted but sometimes overlooked learning tool, and therefore could realistically inform and improve my future teaching practice. Lastly, research into pupil talk has its own intrinsic worth, as transcripts provide both thought-provoking and informative evidence of their own. Thus, I was keen, within my placement school, to discover and consider how the pupils responded and talked about the language together in pairs.