The American Sign Language construction commonly known as "role-shift" (referred to afterward as Constructed Action) superficially resembles mimic forms, however unlike mime, Constructed Action is a type of depicting construction in ASL discourse (Roy 1989). The signer may use eye gaze, head shift, facial expression, stylistic variation,…

Handshape works differently in nouns versus a class of verbs in American Sign Language (ASL) and thus can serve as a cue to distinguish between these two word classes. Handshapes representing characteristics of the object itself ("object" handshapes) and handshapes representing how the object is handled ("handling" handshapes)…

Following a year of study of Saudi Arabian Sign Language (SASL), we are documenting our findings to provide a grammatical sketch of the language. This paper represents one part of that endeavor and focuses on a description of selected morphemes, both manual and non-manual, that have appeared in the course of data collection. While some of the…

A notable difference between signed and spoken languages is the use of nonmanual linguistic signals that co-occur with the production of signs. These nonmanual signals involve primarily the face and upper torso and are an important feature of American Sign Language (ASL). They include grammatical markers that indicate syntactic categories such as…

In sign languages of the Deaf, now recognized as fully legitimate human languages, some signs can meaningfully point toward things or can be meaningfully placed in the space ahead of the signer. Such spatial uses of sign are an obligatory part of fluent grammatical signing. There is no parallel for this in vocally produced languages. This book…

American Sign Language uses the face to express vital components of grammar in addition to the more universal expressions of emotion. The study of ASL facial expressions has focused mostly on the perception and categorization of various expression types by signing and nonsigning subjects. Only a few studies of the production of ASL facial…

This paper summarizes most of what Sign linguists know about the function of the eyes in American Sign Language discourse. Here, "eyes" is taken to cover both opening and closing of the eyes and looking in a particular direction, referred to as the signer's "gaze-direction." Evidence is presented demonstrating that a signer's gaze can be lexically…

Two pilot studies probed effectiveness of linguistically controlled, highly visual computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for English grammar instruction with hearing-impaired high school students (N=29 in the first study and N=71 in the second). Results from the first study suggested that state-of-the-art CAI designed specifically for use with this…