Sign Languages Commons^™

Vr Sound Mapping: Make Sound Accessible For Dhh People In Virtual Reality Environments, Ziming Li, Roshan Peiris

Frameless

In-game audio plays an important role in enhancing the sense of reality and immersion in the gaming experience. In many games, sounds are also used to provide notifications and clues, which are essential to the gameplay. However, in this case, the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) players may fail to access the information conveyed by sounds, which degrades their gaming experience (Jain et al. 2021).

Vr Sound Mapping: Make Sound Accessible For Dhh People In Virtual Reality Environments, Ziming Li, Roshan Peiris

Frameless

In-game audio plays an important role in enhancing the sense of reality and immersion in the gaming experience. In many games, sounds are also used to provide notifications and clues which are essential to the gameplay. However, in this case, the DHH (deaf and hard of hearing) players may fail to access the information conveyed by sounds, which degrades their gaming experience (Jain et al. 2021).

Interview With Natasha Ofili, Monica Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

Natasha Ofili, the star and screenwriter of The Multi, was interviewed by Monica Blizek about the process that led to the creation of the film.

The Iconicity And Non-Arbitrariness Of Body Locations In Four Unrelated Sign Languages, John Samson

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I show that universally, there is a strong tendency for signs located on the body to have an iconic or non-arbitrary motivation, especially in their original form. I analyze sign language dictionaries from four unrelated sign languages and establish an iconic or non-arbitrary link between the form of the signs and their meaning, and classify those links according to 8 categories of body location iconicity and 3 categories of non-arbitrariness. The strength of this tendency depends on the percentage of signs that are shown to have an iconic or non-arbitrary link. For the data analyzed here this …

Participant Reference In Colombian Sign Language Narrative, Martha Lois Gateley

Theses and Dissertations

Much of the research on discourse in sign languages thus far has been carried out on American Sign Language. With this thesis, I add to the current research by comparing what is known about participant reference in American Sign Language with Colombian Sign Language.

This thesis analyzes six separate stories totaling 72 minutes, signed by 5 different native signers of Colombian Sign Language. ELAN (a computer software for annotation) was used to mark all of the referring terms in the subject position and categorize the terms by type (nominal reference, pronominal reference, zero-anaphor, and classifier) and by function (introduction, reintroduction …

From Interpreting Student To Deaf Interpreter: A Case Study Of Vocational Identity Development, Margie English, Brenda Nicodemus, Danielle I. J. Hunt, Stephan Kennedy, Mckenna Mcgough

Journal of Interpretation

Research indicates that the development of a vocational identity is critical to the process of adult maturation and for creating a sense of purpose in one’s life. Deaf individuals in the United States are increasingly interested in establishing a vocation in signed language interpreting, despite workplace obstacles experienced by other oppressed and marginalized populations. Career identity has been examined in several professions, but little is known about the factors underlying the vocational identity development of Deaf interpreters. To address this gap, the researchers adopted a case study approach to explore the experiences of two Deaf students during their first semester …

Finding Their Fit: An Exploratory Study Of Interpreters’ Perceptions Of Their Membership In The Deaf Community, Cami J. Miner

Journal of Interpretation

In the U.S., Deaf individuals who use a signed language as their preferred and dominant means of communication are considered a distinct linguistic and cultural group known as the Deaf community. Sign language interpreters, particularly non-native signers who are leaning ASL, are frequently encouraged to associate with the Deaf community as part of their language acquisition process. However, interpreters who are not deaf or native signers, especially students, often experience tension as they interact with the Deaf community. The literature is divided on whether hearing interpreters who learn ASL later in life, even those who are arguably bilingual and bicultural, …

Gendered Translations: Working From Asl Into English, Campbell Mcdermid, Brianna Bricker, Andrea Shealy, Abigail Copen

Journal of Interpretation

American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-spatial language that differs from spoken language, such as English. One way is in the use and characteristics of pronouns (Meier, 1990). Pronouns in ASL, for example, are created by pointing to objects or locations in space (written in English here as POINT), and do not have a gender assigned to them as they do in English (he, she, him, her). So, where it is not specified in ASL, interpreters must decide how to interpret pronouns into English. Limited research has been done on this topic (Quinto-Pozos et al., 2015), and so a study …

Exploring Tactile Art-Making With Deafblind Students And Their Families: An Opportunity For Creative Play, Alice Rodgers

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The impact of a deafblind diagnosis on an individual’s mental health and the well-being of the family involved can be profound. However, current research and available literature for the mental health treatment and therapy practices of deafblind persons and their families is limited (Kyzar et al., 2016; “WFDB Global Report 2018,” n.d.). This thesis used the Leeds Family Psychology and Therapy Service principles (Leeds FPTS) and the Expressive Therapies Continuum with established deafblind teaching strategies to facilitate an original arts-based community project entitled: “Things We Like.” This project provided an opportunity for deafblind students (ages three to 22) and their …

Bilingual Language Stimulation Strategies: Recasting And Expansion: A Creative Research Based Product, Merri Lindsey

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

The purpose of this research-based creative product was to provide a workshop to parents of toddlers providing information on preventative language stimulation strategies, specifically recasting and expansion. The original proposed study intended to analyze outcomes based on a pretest/posttest design, but due to recruitment challenges, it changed. Four remote synchronous workshops were planned: one for hearing parents of children acquiring ASL, one for hearing parents of children acquiring spoken English, one for deaf parents of children acquiring spoken English and ASL, and one for deaf parents of children acquiring ASL. Due to struggles with participant recruitment, I instead developed a …

Timing Comparisons Across American Sign Language And English, Jillian Bartlett

Thinking Matters Symposium

American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English differ in modalities, but prosody can be found in both. Previous studies show that the Closure Positive Shift (CPS) (an established component of an Event-Related Potential [ERP]) occurs in response to acoustic stimuli indicative of prosodic phrasing (Pannekamp et al., 2005; Steinhauer et al., 1999). Prosodic processing in relation to these two modalities was studied using EEG. Sixteen Deaf ASL speakers and 34 hearing English speakers participated in the study by watching video or listening to audio recordings of stimuli while a portable electroencephalogram, or EEG (a device that detects abnormalities in brain …

An Interactive Visual Database For American Sign Language Reveals How Signs Are Organized In The Mind, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Ariel Goldberg, Karen Emmory, Naomi Caselli

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

"We are four researchers who study psycholinguistics, linguistics, neuroscience and deaf education. Our team of deaf and hearing scientists worked with a group of software engineers to create the ASL-LEX database that anyone can use for free. We cataloged information on nearly 3,000 signs and built a visual, searchable and interactive database that allows scientists and linguists to work with ASL in entirely new ways."

The Asl-Lex 2.0 Project: A Database Of Lexical And Phonological Properties For 2,723 Signs In American Sign Language, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Ariel M. Cohen-Goldberg, Karen Emmory

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency (“guessability”) ratings (from non-signers), sign and videoclip durations, lexical class, and more. We document the steps used to create ASL-LEX 2.0 and describe the distributional characteristics for sign properties across the lexicon and examine the relationships among lexical and phonological properties of signs. Correlation …

Sign Language And Language Development: A Meta-Analysis, Yasmin Sanchez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study takes a look at baby signing and its effect on caregiver responsiveness, considering how vital caregiver responsiveness is when it comes to language development. A meta-analytic review that quantitatively combines data was conducted to estimate the effect size between baby signs and caregiver responsiveness. There were no restrictions on geography or culture in which studies were conducted. However, the time period of publication was limited from 2009 to 2020 in an attempt to examine the most recent research possible. The following search terms were used: baby signing, gestures, caregiver responsiveness, caregiver interactions, and caregiver. For a study to …

Zoomprov. Improvisation Exercises For Language Learning In Online Classes With Zoom Or Similar Tech For Beginning And Intermediate Learners And Beyond, Mona Eikel-Pohen

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

The improv language exercises in this compilation are chosen from the experience I gathered 20 years ago, but also from the amazing work of Lauren Esposito and Scranton Improv & Comedy that have been more real than anything else to me this past summer, and from Jim Ansaldo, who taught me how to structure improv exercises online. They are organized by level, referring to the Common European Framework of References for Languages. That means, A1 exercises can be conducted at the beginners level but also at all other higher levels, but B2 exercises should not be imposed upon beginners or …

Exploring Accessibility And Social Inclusion For Children With Hearing Impairments In Residential Camps Through The Occupational Therapy Lens, Tiffany Coles

Student Capstone Papers

Children are encouraged to engage in various play, leisure, and social participation activities to enhance the development of life skills, independence, and social skills. A common leisure and social participation activity for children aged 6 to 18-years-old is to attend residential camp. Residential camps provide children a structured opportunity to engage in leisure activities while learning to become independent and self-confident when socializing and making new friends. Attending camp can be a fun and engaging environment to help accelerate growth in key developmental outcomes, such as positive identity, social skills, physical skills, positive values, and spirituality.

Within the residential camp …

Cross-Linguistic Metaphor Priming In Asl-English Bilinguals: Effects Of The Double Mapping Constraint, Franziska Schaller, Brittany Lee, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Lucinda O'Grady Farnady, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Meir’s (2010) Double Mapping Constraint (DMC) states the use of iconic signs in metaphors is restricted to signs that preserve the structural correspondence between the articulators and the concrete source domain and between the concrete and metaphorical domains. We investigated ASL signers’ comprehension of English metaphors whose translations complied with the DMC (Communication collapsed during the meeting) or violated the DMC (The acid ate the metal). Metaphors were preceded by the ASL translation of the English verb, an unrelated sign, or a still video. Participants made sensibility judgments. Response times (RTs) were faster for DMC-Compliant sentences …

A Lexical Frequency Analysis Of Irish Sign Language, Robert G. Smith, Markus Hofmann

Articles

Word frequency has a significant impact on language acquisition and fluency. It is often a point of reference for the teaching and assessing of a language and indeed, as a control for psycholinguistic studies. This paper presents the results of the first objective frequency analysis of lexical tokens from the Signs of Ireland corpus. We investigate the frequency of fully lexical, partly lexical and non-lexical signs in Irish Sign Language as they are presented in the corpus. We confirm the accuracy of the lexical gloss frequency data with a supplementary corpus subset that is tagged for grammatical class and additional …

An Acoustic Study Of The Monophthongs Of Ulu Terengganu Malay Dialect, Nuwawi Siti Nadiah

Student Works (2020-2029)

Amongst sub-dialects spoken in the region of Terengganu, the dialect of Ulu Terengganu Malay is the most incomprehensible variety that varies greatly in the aspects of pronunciation and lexical as compared to the standard Terengganu dialect. However, the uniqueness of the language is insufficiently addressed by academic scholars, especially acoustic features of the dialect. Through an acoustic analysis method, this research attempted to investigate the quality of monophthongs produced by the Ulu Terengganu Malay speakers. The data was collected from a group of male and female Ulu Terengganu Malay speakers. A word list and pictures were used as instruments in …

The Filipino Sign Language Act In The Philippines: Policy Analysis, Angela Rogers

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Passed in 2018, the Filipino Sign Language Act provides full access for Deaf Filipinos in the Philippines and fully recognizes the Filipino Sign Language as a national sign language for the Deaf. This benefits analysis identifies objectives concerning all areas of public life--such as medicine, education, civic and government affairs, employment, television news access, and other media access--and compares this broad law to the narrowly focused preceding policy, Republic Act no. 10905. The law contains an implementation timeline and requires reporting; yet, evidence shows some implementations but no reporting. To explore these findings, interviews were conducted with two Filipinos at …

I See What You're Saying: A Deaf Culture And American Sign Language Awareness Event, Alexis M. Sejnoha

Honors Thesis

Deaf Culture and American Sign Language are an important part of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community. Most people outside of this community are unaware of these aspects, and remain uneducated about them. This document is an event plan for an educational event about American Sign Language and Deaf Culture, as well as an artist statement explaining the conception and implementation of this plan, and how it was impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic.

Unique N170 Signatures To Words And Faces In Deaf Asl Signers Reflect Experience-Specific Adaptations During Early Visual Processing, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Katherine J. Midgley, Phillipp J. Holcomb, Karen Emmorey, David C. Plaut, Marlene Behrmann

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Previous studies with deaf adults reported reduced N170 waveform asymmetry to visual words, a finding attributed to reduced phonological mapping in left-hemisphere temporal regions compared to hearing adults. An open question remains whether this pattern indeed results from reduced phonological processing or from general neurobiological adaptations in visual processing of deaf individuals. Deaf ASL signers and hearing nonsigners performed a same-different discrimination task with visually presented words, faces, or cars, while scalp EEG time-locked to the onset of the first item in each pair was recorded. For word recognition, the typical left-lateralized N170 in hearing participants and reduced left-sided asymmetry …

A Data-Driven Approach To The Semantics Of Iconicity In American Sign Language And English, Bill Thompson, Marcus Perlman, Gary Lupyan, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Karen Emmory

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

A growing body of research shows that both signed and spoken languages display regular patterns of iconicity in their vocabularies. We compared iconicity in the lexicons of American Sign Language (ASL) and English by combining previously collected ratings of ASL signs (Caselli, Sevcikova Sehyr, Cohen-Goldberg, & Emmorey, 2017) and English words (Winter, Perlman, Perry, & Lupyan, 2017) with the use of data-driven semantic vectors derived from English. Our analyses show that models of spoken language lexical semantics drawn from large text corpora can be useful for predicting the iconicity of signs as well as words. Compared to English, ASL has …

Deaf Translators: What Are They Thinking?, Janis Cole Ms.

Journal of Interpretation

The examination of work performed by Deaf translators in creating translations between written texts and signed languages is an emerging area of inquiry in Translation Studies. Deaf people have been performing ad hoc translations within their community for hundreds of years (Adam, Carty & Stone, 2011; Bartley & Stone, 2008). More recently, Deaf translators have begun to work as paid professionals, creating a new subfield of Translation Studies, one that, to date, is largely unexplored. Using qualitative data, this pilot study examines the thought processes of two Deaf individuals in the rendering of an academic text from written English into …

Growing Up Deaf In Appalachia: An Oral History Of My Mother, Elizabeth Shelton Tipton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the life experiences of a rural, Deaf Appalachian woman, Jane Ann Shelton, a second generation Deaf child born to Deaf parents from the communities of Devil’s Fork (Flag Pond, Tennessee) and Shelton Laurel (Madison County, North Carolina). Over two hours of videotaped interviews were interpreted and transcribed, followed by various other communications to describe the life of a rural, Deaf Appalachian woman without a formal high school degree. As an advocate and a political lobbyist in Tennessee during the 1980s and 90s, she was unparalleled by her peers (deaf or hearing) in her efforts to “enhance …

The Perceived Mapping Between Form And Meaning In American Sign Language Depends On Linguistic Knowledge And Task: Evidence From Iconicity And Transparency Judgments, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Iconicity is often defined as the resemblance between a form and a given meaning, while transparency is defined as the ability to infer a given meaning based on the form. This study examined the influence of knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) on the perceived iconicity of signs and the relationship between iconicity, transparency (correctly guessed signs), ‘perceived transparency’ (transparency ratings of the guesses), and ‘semantic potential’ (the diversity (H index) of guesses). Experiment 1 compared iconicity ratings by deaf ASL signers and hearing non-signers for 991 signs from the ASL-LEX database. Signers and non-signers’ ratings were highly correlated; however, …

Second Language Acquisition Of American Sign Language Influences Co-Speech Gesture Production, Jill Weisberg, Shannon Casey, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Previous work indicates that 1) adults with native sign language experience produce more manual co-speech gestures than monolingual non-signers, and 2) one year of ASL instruction increases gesture production in adults, but not enough to differentiate them from non-signers. To elucidate these effects, we asked early ASL–English bilinguals, fluent late second language (L2) signers (≥ 10 years of experience signing), and monolingual non-signers to retell a story depicted in cartoon clips to a monolingual partner. Early and L2 signers produced manual gestures at higher rates compared to non-signers, particularly iconic gestures, and used a greater variety of handshapes. These results …

The Expression Of Modality In Iranian Sign Language (Zei), Sara Siyavoshi

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation uses data from Zaban Eshareh Irani, Iranian Sign Language, to investigate the linguistic strategies for the expression of modality in this language. Manual and facial markers of modality are recognized and analyzed based on their form and the semantic domain each covers. Vander Auwera and Plungian (1998) offered a semantic map for categorization of different modals across languages. According to their framework, modality can be classified into two vast domains of possibility and necessity. Based on the source of the modal force then, each modality domain is categorized into three groups of participant-external, participant-internal and epistemic. In this …

Reference Tracking In Ethiopian Sign Language, Katelin Jo French

Theses and Dissertations

Very little has been written about Ethiopian Sign Language, but the language has obvious differences from more well-studied signed languages. This thesis focuses on striking differences in reference tracking: looking at all the different referring types—lexical items, points, eye gaze, body shift, agreement, and zero reference—and their distribution throughout narrative texts. Through this process, Ethiopian Sign Language has proved different from expectations based on previously studied signed languages. This language uses loci with much more flexibility, depending on role shift alone to strongly establish loci for entities. Another way this language differs from other languages is its lack of entity …

The Impact Of Translation On Constructed Action And Constructed Dialogue In Asl Texts, Beth C. Gray

Theses and Dissertations

Depiction, a phenomenon similar to iconicity, involves representing what something "looks like or is like" (Streeck 2008:289). Because depiction is used more heavily in sign languages than spoken languages (Dudis 2007), people interpreting or translating spoken/written texts into signed languages struggle to use depiction naturally (Thumann 2011). This thesis analyzes constructed action (CA) and constructed dialogue (CD), two types of depiction in which the signer's hands represent those of a discourse participant. Using Tannen (1989) & Metzger's (1995) framework of non-directly-quoted CACD and Quinto-Pozos & Mehta's (2010) degrees of CA, I examine differences between narratives originally composed in ASL and …