Typology and lexicon of sign languages
Course author
Materials
Typology and lexicon of sign languages - materials.rar
The paper by Sandler & Lillo-Martin (2001) is a general introduction to sign linguistics. If you know very little about sign languages, please have a look at it in advance.
The paper by Taub (2012) is an overview of iconicity and metaphor in sign languages. We will discuss most of it in class.
Please bring a laptop or tablet to class, as they will be necessary for the practical part of the class.
Course annotation
After 60 years of research, we know now that sign languages are natural languages that exist in the visual-gestural modality. Although they are in many respects similar to spoken languages, they also have some interesting modality-specific properties. In this short course we will discuss how the lexicon of sign languages is structured, and what role iconicity and metaphor play in creation of signs. This also includes a hands-on experience of analysing and comparing signs across various sign languages.