Abstract: One component of American Sign Language (ASL) proficiency is knowledge of and ability to manipulate the smallest meaningful units of signs, known as parameters in ASL (i.e., handshape, orientation, location, movement, and nonmanual signals). In this study, we documented university-level second language learners' performance on a receptive comprehension test and a phonological fluency sign retrieval and production task. We investigated if learners used semantic or phonological connections to facilitate sign retrieval among adjacently produced signs. We also investigated correlations between receptive and expressive measures, as well as participant factors that related to performance. Finally, we investigated if a short intervention focused on explicit instruction in ASL phonology significantly changed second modality-second language learners' (M2L2) sign retrieval and production compared to a group who did not receive the intervention. Findings suggest M2L2 learners organize their sign lexicon by shared location and meaning across signs, a strategy that can be utilized within instruction. Additionally, measures correlated. Academic hours of using ASL correlated with ASL comprehension, while learner self-rating and social hours using ASL related to their expressive performance.

Abstract: This study examined the impact of language dominance on variation in American Sign Language (ASL) production among 100 proficient deaf and hard of hearing signers who acquired ASL before age eight. While ASL variation has traditionally been attributed to factors like age of acquisition, proficiency, and sociolinguistic influences, this study introduced language dominance, a known factor modulating the presence of linguistic elements from one language within another among bilingual speakers. Findings revealed that ASL-English language dominance moderately predicted the use of English mouthings (operationalized here as mouthings ) and ASL classifiers (operationalized as classifiers ): ASL-dominant signers produced fewer mouthings and more classifiers, while English-dominant signers displayed the opposite pattern. Notably, this influence was consistent in both native and early nonnative signers, suggesting that the integration of English elements is not solely due to proficiency limitations but also reflects bilingual language dynamics. These results indicate that sign-spoken bilinguals may often operate in a bilingual mode, accessing both ASL and English syntactic structures during ASL discourse. Implications extend to ASL documentation and proficiency tests, as traditional monolingual frameworks may not capture the fluid syntactic variation in signing ecologies. This finding also suggests that aspects of English grammar may be amodal for ASL signers, with potential applications for bilingual processing models.

Abstract: The transfer verb "give" has been shown to be subject to metaphorical extension and—in a second step—grammaticalization in many unrelated languages. As for the former process, we observe extension to abstract transfer (e.g., "give responsibility/pleasure"); as for the latter, "give" may grammaticalize into, for instance, a benefactive or causative marker (e.g., Kuteva et al. 2019). The mechanisms underlying these diachronic changes appear to be modality-independent, as similar processes have been identified in various sign languages. In the present study, we offer the first comprehensive overview of various uses of "give" in a single sign language, Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), based entirely on naturalistic corpus data. A search of the Corpus NGT yielded 131 tokens of geven ("give"). Analysis of these tokens reveals that less than a third of them actually express concrete transfer, while the remaining tokens express abstract transfer of various types (e.g., "give chance," "give name"), including grammatical meanings like change of state/causation (e.g., "give happy"). We discuss our findings from a crossmodal and intramodal typological perspective, offering also speculations about a possible grammaticalization path.

From Teaching Deaf Children to Sign Language Research in Norway Marit Vogt-Svendsen (bio) Introduction The motivation for starting with sign language research probably started in my childhood in the 1950s and early 1960s. I was born in Italy where my father was a vicar in the Norwegian seamen's church in Genova, but we came home to Norway when I was two years old. Then, I grew up in Oslo at a home for deaf and deafblind adults with special needs, the Home for the Deaf (Hjemmet for Døve, today called Signo, Conrad Svendsen Centre), where my father was assistant to the director. Since my father was also a vicar for the deaf, my brothers and I occasionally followed him when he gave sermons in the deaf church or visited associations and schools at Christmas, bazaars, etc. As a youth, I occasionally joined the youth club for deaf people in Oslo. In all these environments where deaf children, youngsters, and adults were gathered, I saw the same thing: Deaf people communicated and understood each other very well. I never doubted that sign language was language on an equal footing with spoken language. My childhood experiences gave me an intuitive understanding for free. At the Home for the Deaf, as I remember, there was a basic respect for sign language. Through discussions I witnessed, I eventually understood that there were disagreements between this institution and the [End Page 452] schools for the deaf when it came to the acceptance of sign language. I was upset. How could anyone think that sign language was poor and primitive, not a proper language, and should not be used in schools when it was that language deaf persons had access to in normal communication contexts? To me, the debate seemed incomprehensible. I remember discussing this with my father as an early teenager He completely agreed with my arguments. The very first incentive for working with deaf people and sign language was founded. Becoming a Teacher for Deaf Children Although I grew up at the Home for the Deaf, my sign language skills were limited. I knew some signs and could make myself understood in simple conversations, but I did not understand all conversations between deaf people. When deaf people signed to me, they adapted their language to my limitations and used a combination of sign and speech. I experienced the same with the pupils at the school for deaf children in Oslo, Skådalen school, where I started as a teacher in 1972, just after finishing my general teacher training. At that time, the job required no sign language competence. I was told to speak and point and use as few signs as possible during the lessons. It must be added that the school for the deaf in Trondheim was probably more sign language-friendly than the one in Oslo. At the Skådalen school, if I had to use a sign, it had to be simultaneous with the spoken word, so that "the pupils could learn Norwegian." They had to lipread. Likewise, the education of teachers of the deaf had a strong emphasis on the spoken language and a lack of information about sign language as a full-fledged language. This was also the policy at the Norwegian Institute of Special Education, also called the Advanced Teacher Training College of Special Education (Statens spesiallærerhøgskole), where I studied when on leave from Skådalen from 1973 to 75. There was no sign language training, but we did receive a limited number of hours where we learned some single signs. Experiences with Signed Norwegian Beyond the 1970s, it was obvious that the pupils did not learn Norwegian well enough, either orally or in writing, by using mainly Norwegian in the classroom. Like in several countries, an attempt [End Page 453] was made to make spoken language visible by adding signs to all the words. Teachers and the Norwegian Association of the Deaf (Norges Døveforbund, henceforth NDF) agreed to build a system that followed the spoken language word for word. This so-called "new sign language" was eventually called Signed Norwegian (tegnspråknorsk). It deviated from Norwegian Sign Language (henceforth NSL) with...

Abstract: This study undertook iconicity ratings and conducted transparency experiments on Israeli Sign Language (ISL). Experiment 1 compared the iconicity ratings of 520 lexical signs of ten Deaf ISL signers and thirteen hearing nonsigners. Ratings were found to be affected by language knowledge, lexical class, and type of iconic mapping, as well as by factors less connected to iconicity, such as a sense of familiarity with a form. In experiment 2, twenty nonsigners guessed the meaning of the 520 signs, and the correct guesses were correlated with the iconicity scores. Overall, nonsigners tended to interpret signs as representing actions. The results demonstrated that (1) signers' ratings reflect the diverse semiotic ways that meanings are represented in the lexicon, predictably more so than nonsigners' ratings, and (2) when meanings are not provided, the perception of iconicity is attuned mostly to the movement aspect of the forms. It is recommended that both studies be conducted together in order to achieve a more nuanced picture concerning the perception of iconicity and its role in the lexicon.

Abstract: The linguistic and cognitive importance of early language exposure for deaf children is well reported in the literature. However, most of such studies have been conducted in industrialized countries with less of such studies conducted in developing and nonindustrialized countries such as Ghana. Therefore, hinged on the social interactionist theory of language development, this study explored the factors that influence early acquisition of sign language among deaf children from a low-resource setting in Ghana. Ten mothers of deaf children from these communities were purposively selected for the study. Data was gathered through observation, focus group discussion, and a face-to-face interview using a semistructured interview guide. The data were subsequently analyzed thematically. Parents' knowledge about their children's deafness, sociocultural beliefs, and the parents' interactions with their deaf children at home were found as core potential factors influencing early acquisition of sign language among deaf children in these low-resourced communities. Based on these findings, appropriate recommendations are made for policy and practice.

Abstract: The focus of this article is on deaf blind people who are or have been involved with deaf signing communities and, when vision changes, transition to tactile reception of sign language. This brings about a disconnection with the signing community, exploration of (other) possibilities, and seeking or creating deaf blind spaces. In the United States, the protactile movement led to a more tactile-centric form of communication and to more autonomy for deaf blind people. In international settings, deaf blind people from diverse language backgrounds communicate in a mix of visual and tactile representations or conventions of concepts. At the academic level, deaf blind people have been studied by a variety of disciplines. Deaf blind studies benefits from multidisciplinary and insider perspectives to gain more insights into theory and research methods.

This study is a follow-up to previous research conducted in 2012 on computer-assisted language testing (CALT) that applied a survey approach to investigate the use of technology in sign language testing worldwide. The goal of the current study was to replicate the 2012 study and to obtain updated information on the use of technology in sign language testing. Another goal was to broaden the scope of the previous study by also considering the use of automatic sign language recognition and production (by avatars) in applied testing scenarios through technologies that make use of artificial intelligence (AI). Thirty-two sign language testing professionals participated in the current study. The results of the survey confirm the findings from 2012, but also raise new issues for future research (trends) related to sign language testing, such as the use of automatic sign language recognition for automatic scoring and the problem of acquiring funding for developing and maintaining web-based sign language testing platforms.