Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) is an extinct village sign language hypothesized to be a sister of British Sign Language (BSL) and a significant contributor to early American Sign Language (ASL) (Groce 1985). After the last deaf MVSL signer died, signs were elicited from five hearing signers. This study analyzes that data through a series…

Visual manifestations of an object that moves from one place to another are common in sign languages. Here, we offer an overview of techniques for conveying motion of an entity based on an examination of storytelling and poetry in seven sign languages. The signer can use embodiment and/or classifiers to show translocating movement of an object, or…

Maritime Sign Language (MSL) emerged in the easternmost provinces in Canada with origins traced as far back as to the Weald, a region in Southeastern England. Therefore, British sign language is a root language that led to the creation of MSL. This type of language emersion is known as a Deaf community sign language, which occurs when Deaf people…

Language barriers negatively affect access to social services, particularly for D/deaf populations who use Sign Language. "D/deaf" is used to encompass both the cultural conception of capital-D Deafness and the medical conception of lowercase-d deafness. Language translation/interpretation is a common need among practitioners of social,…

Signs in sign languages have been mainly analyzed as composed of three formational elements: hand configuration, location, and movement. Researchers compare and contrast lexical differences and similarities among different signs and languages based on these formal elements. Such measurement requires extensive manual annotation of each feature…

Although research of bilingualism in a single aural-oral linguistic mode is common, this has yet to be extended to visual-gestural modes of language use. This is a significant research gap, as deaf people and signed languages are agentic forces that contribute to a diverse global linguistic and sociocultural landscape. In this article, we present…

Studies have shown that iconicity can provide a benefit to non-signers during the learning of single signs, but other aspects of signed messages that might also be beneficial have received less attention. In particular, do other features of signed languages help support comprehension of a message during the process of language learning? The…

The intersectional identities and lived experiences of Signing Latinx are insufficiently documented. Reflecting on my own lived experiences, I began to question traditional research paradigms that often neglected the stories shared by individuals from different communities within the larger Signing Latinx community. As I was introduced to Critical…

International Sign (IS) and American Sign Language (ASL) have both been used as lingua francas within international deaf contexts. Perspectives on the uses of IS and ASL as lingua francas in such contexts are connected to discourses pertaining to the form, function, status, value, languageness, and global reach of IS and ASL. While there are some…

Infants are born highly sensitive to the natural patterns found in languages. They use their perceptual sensitivity to acquire detailed information about the structure of languages in their environment. To date, most studies of infant perception and early language acquisition have investigated spoken/auditory languages and hearing infants (e.g.…

Limited access to spoken and signed language is a worldwide phenomenon affecting deaf children. Language delay caused by impeded language acquisition has negative cascading effects on deaf children's learning and development. In the event of stymied language development, deaf students exhibit highly errored writing and commit errors unseen in the…

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was famously advocating for sign language to be the language of instruction for deaf children in the United States, European philosophers were founding modern linguistics. Gallaudet was not able to benefit from their breakthroughs, however, because his upbringing,…

Recent research has shown that a distinct variety of American Sign Language, known as Black ASL, developed in the segregated schools for deaf African Americans in the US South during the pre-civil rights era. Research has also shown that in some respects Black ASL is closer than most white varieties to the standard taught in ASL classes and found…

In sign languages, the task of communicating a shape involves drawing in the air with one moving hand (Method One) or two (Method Two). Since the movement path is iconic, method choice might be based on the shape. In the present studies we aimed to determine whether geometric properties motivate method choice. In a study of 17 deaf signers from…

Maritime Sign Language (MSL) is a Canadian, minority sign language that originally stems from British Sign Language (BSL). Currently used by elderly Deaf people in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland (and Labrador), it is a moribund language, having undergone language shift to American Sign Language (ASL). MSL is…