Topics and topica1ization in American Sign Language

Aarons, Debra

doi:10.5774/30-0-61

Cited by 12 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…Third, when researchers use the term 'topic' , they may not have the same types of syntactic constructions in mind; even if the same syntactic constructions are referred to, they may actually serve different functions. Liddell (1980), Padden (1988), and Aarons (1996) all cited preposed grammatical objects in their discussions of the nonmanual topic-markers in ASL (as in example (5), (6), and (7) above), but the topic-marked elements do not serve the same discourse functions. Assuming that all researchers are correct in their analyses, brow raise in ASL can either topicalize or focalize an NP.…”

Section: Topic Constructions In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…sub-types of topics in the investigation of nonmanual markers, e.g., Aarons (1996) observes that moved topics and base-generated topics are marked by nonmanual features in ASL. Third, when researchers use the term 'topic' , they may not have the same types of syntactic constructions in mind; even if the same syntactic constructions are referred to, they may actually serve different functions.…”

Section: Topic Constructions In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…-American Sign Language (ASL): Fischer (1974Fischer ( , 1975, Liddell (1980), McIntire (1980), Padden (1988), Isenhath (1990), Janzen (1995Janzen ( , 1997Janzen ( , 1999, Aarons (1996), among others. Examples (5) to (10) illustrate selected topic constructions from these studies.…”

Section: Topic Constructions In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the sign language literature, topic constructions are widely reported as being marked by nonmanual features such as a brow raise, a head tilt, and a pause which sets the topic constituent off the rest of the sentence intonationally (Liddell 1980;Janzen 1999;Aarons 1996;Rosenstein 2001;Coerts 1992;among others). This study investigates whether topic constituents are marked consistently by nonmanuals in Hong Kong Sign Language (henceforth HKSL).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Sze

2011

SL&L

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Across sign languages, topic constructions are marked by nonmanual features such as a brow raise and head tilt. This study investigates whether a topic constituent is marked nonmanually in Hong Kong Sign Language. Spontaneous and elicited data show that the majority of 'scene-setting' topics, which provide a temporal, spatial or individual framework for the proposition in the sentence, are accompanied with a brow raise and a specific head/body position different from the rest of the sentence. In contrast, 'aboutness' topics that represent what a sentence is about are neither marked by nonmanuals consistently nor separated intonationally from the rest of the sentence. Grammatical objects fronted to the sentence-initial position are not marked nonmanually, either. The findings suggest that there are cross-linguistic differences with respect to the functions of nonmanuals in the information structuring of sign languages.

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Section: Topic Constructions In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Topic Constructions In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Topic Constructions In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Sze

2011

SL&L

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“…one topic or two topics. The order in which topics may occur depends on the sorts of topics they are semantically, their syntactic relationship to the rest of the sentence, and the non-manual marking that they bear, which is related to their semantic representation (Aarons 1994(Aarons , 1996. We provide this information about topics and topic position in order to examine the relationship between NP topics and the use of classifier predicates.…”

Section: Topics and Classifier Predicatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The interaction of classifiers and syntax in South African sign language

Aarons

Morgan²

2012

Stellenbosch pap. linguist.

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The recognition of facial expressions of emotion in deaf and hearing individuals

Rodger

Lao

Stoll

et al. 2021

Heliyon

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During real-life interactions, facial expressions of emotion are perceived dynamically with multimodal sensory information. In the absence of auditory sensory channel inputs, it is unclear how facial expressions are recognised and internally represented by deaf individuals. Few studies have investigated facial expression recognition in deaf signers using dynamic stimuli, and none have included all six basic facial expressions of emotion (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) with stimuli fully controlled for their low-level visual properties, leaving the question of whether or not a dynamic advantage for deaf observers exists unresolved. We hypothesised, in line with the enhancement hypothesis, that the absence of auditory sensory information might have forced the visual system to better process visual (unimodal) signals, and predicted that this greater sensitivity to visual stimuli would result in better recognition performance for dynamic compared to static stimuli, and for deaf-signers compared to hearing non-signers in the dynamic condition. To this end, we performed a series of psychophysical studies with deaf signers with early-onset severe-to-profound deafness (dB loss >70) and hearing controls to estimate their ability to recognize the six basic facial expressions of emotion. Using static, dynamic, and shuffled (randomly permuted video frames of an expression) stimuli, we found that deaf observers showed similar categorization profiles and confusions across expressions compared to hearing controls (e.g., confusing surprise with fear). In contrast to our hypothesis, we found no recognition advantage for dynamic compared to static facial expressions for deaf observers. This observation shows that the decoding of dynamic facial expression emotional signals is not superior even in the deaf expert visual system, suggesting the existence of optimal signals in static facial expressions of emotion at the apex. Deaf individuals match hearing individuals in the recognition of facial expressions of emotion.

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Topics and topica1ization in American Sign Language

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

The interaction of classifiers and syntax in South African sign language

The recognition of facial expressions of emotion in deaf and hearing individuals

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