This article discusses the positioning of "wh" words in Modern Laos Sign Language. Research indicates that there are two common patterns for the position of "wh" words in spoken languages: the initial position and in situ (Dryer 2013). However, in some sign languages, it seems that "wh" word positioning is…

In a Dialogue section of the "Journal of Sociolinguistics" (vol. 26, no. 1), author pairs introduce a number of themes and debates in sign language sociolinguistics, explore why these are debates; how the debates are situated within sociolinguistics as a whole; and how spoken language sociolinguistics does or does not have similar…

We present one of the first detailed studies on hesitation marking in a sign language. Based on the analysis of a set of monologues and dialogues from the "Corpus NGT" (Crasborn and Zwitserlood 2008; Crasborn, Zwitserlood, and Ros 2008), we describe the form and position of manual and nonmanual markers of hesitation in Sign Language of…

This longitudinal pilot study examined the pointing behavior of two Israeli Deaf mothers and one hearing mother over the course of their infant's signed/spoken language acquisition. Three aspects were analyzed: (a) frequency of use; (b) function; and (c) pointing form. The findings indicated that the Deaf mothers used pointing more frequently than…

Naming spaces is a human act and reflects traces of the culture and social group to which the person who names a place belongs, either in spoken or sign languages. This article presents an analysis of the toponyms in Libras that name the cities of the state of Acre. The toponyms were stored in digital files proposed by Sousa and Quadros (2019),…

This article aims to identify common errors made by hearing students learning South African Sign Language (SASL) and enhance the understanding of language acquisition in this context. The researchers formulated three hypotheses, attributing errors to vocabulary gaps, misunderstandings due to improper signing, and the dual impact of spoken and…

The article discusses the importance of sociohistorical context which is the foundation of variation studies in sociolinguistics. The studies on variation in spoken and signed languages are reviewed with the discussion of geographical and social aspects which are treated as external factors in the formation and maintenance of dialects and those…

D/deaf children of Deaf parents reportedly begin learning finger-spelling as young as thirteen months old, but deaf children born to hearing, nonsigning parents lack natural access to the native (spoken) language of their families, often exhibiting later language development. Forty-four deaf adults participated in a fingerspelling test of…

In 1924 Jabbar Baghcheban created a manual system that employed the phonetic characteristics of spoken Persian and Perso-Arabic orthography for use in the education of deaf students (Ibrahimi 2007). This article is a first exploration of variation and change in this system as it has evolved into the Iranian manual alphabet. Data on the…

This article explores the language of bimodal bilinguals (i.e., hearing children of Deaf parents who are exposed to sign language at home and to spoken language in the surrounding community). In similar bilingual contexts involving pairs of spoken languages, the language used at home, which differs from that of the community, is referred to as the…

New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) became an official language (NZSL Act 2006) when its vitality was already under pressure. Even though its institutional status has improved recently, the traditional community domains of NZSL use and transmission are apparently shrinking inasmuch as most of the deaf children who have cochlear implants are acquiring…

A small group of interpreters was interviewed with regard to their view of learning ASL and becoming bicultural. A model of identity was then postulated based on Hegel's dialectic (Wheat 2012) of thesis (presuppositions, stereotypes, or theories about ASL and the Deaf community), antithesis (conflicting experiences), and synthesis (new…

This article addresses the special challenges associated with collecting longitudinal samples of the spontaneous sign language and spoken language production by young bimodal bilingual children. We discuss the methods used in our study of children in the United States and Brazil. Since one of our goals is to observe both sign language and speech,…

In both signed and spoken languages, pointing serves to direct an addressee's attention to a particular entity. This entity may be either present or absent in the physical context of the conversation. In this article we focus on pointing directed to nonspeaker/nonaddressee referents in Sign Language of the Netherlands (Nederlandse Gebarentaal,…

Presents sign language as a central fact in the life of deaf individuals and groups and therefore as a focus for educational efforts. Looks at the different ways languages are presented to the eye instead of the ear, examines bilingualism and its special life in the life and education of deaf persons, and shows teachers ways to ask and answer…