Typological studies require a broad range of linguistic data from a variety of countries, especially developing nations whose languages are under-researched. This is especially challenging for investigations of sign languages, because there are no existing corpora for most of them, and some are completely undocumented. To examine three cross-linguistically fruitful semantic fields in sign languages from a typological perspective for the first time, a detailed questionnaire was generated and distributed worldwide through emails, mailing lists, websites and the newsletter of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). This resulted in robust data on kinship, colour and number in 32 sign languages across the globe, 10 of which are revealed in depth within this volume. These comprise languages from Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesian sign language varieties, which are rarely studied. Like other volumes in this series, this book will be illuminative for typologists, students of linguistics and deaf studies, lecturers, researchers, interpreters, and sign language users who travel internationally.

The discovery of the importance of sign language in the deaf community is very recent indeed. This book provides a study of the communication and culture of deaf people, and particularly of the deaf community in Britain. The authors' principal aim is to inform educators, psychologists, linguists and professionals working with deaf people about the rich language the deaf have developed for themselves - a language of movement and space, of the hands and of the eyes, of abstract communication as well as iconic story telling. The first chapters of the book discuss the history of sign language use, its social aspects and the issues surrounding the language acquisition of deaf children (BSL) follows, and the authors also consider how the signs come into existence, change over time and alter their meanings, and how BSL compares and contrasts with spoken languages and other signed languages. Subsequent chapters examine sign language learning from a psychological perspective and other cognitive issues. The book concludes with a consideration of the applications of sign language research, particularly in the contentious field of education. There is still much to be discovered about sign language and the deaf community, but the authors have succeeded in providing an extensive framework on which other researchers can build, from which professionals can develop a coherent practice for their work with deaf people, and from which hearing parents of deaf children can draw the confidence to understand their children's world.

The book is a unique collection of research on sign languages that have emerged in rural communities with a high incidence of, often hereditary, deafness. These sign languages represent the latest addition to the comparative investigation of languages in the gestural modality, and the book is the first compilation of a substantial number of different "village sign languages".Written by leading experts in the field, the volume uniquely combines anthropological and linguistic insights, looking at both the social dynamics and the linguistic structures in these village communities. The book includes primary data from eleven different signing communities across the world, including results from Jamaica, India, Turkey, Thailand, and Bali. All known village sign languages are endangered, usually because of pressure from larger urban sign languages, and some have died out already. Ironically, it is often the success of the larger sign language communities in urban centres, their recognition and subsequent spread, which leads to the endangerment of these small minority sign languages. The book addresses this specific type of language endangerment, documentation strategies, and other ethical issues pertaining to these sign languages on the basis of first-hand experiences by Deaf fieldworkers.

Understanding Signed Languages provides a broad and accessible introduction to the science of language, with evidence drawn from signed languages around the world. Readers will learn about language through a unique set of signed language studies that will surprise them with the diversity of ways human languages achieve the same functional goals of communication. Designed for students with no prior knowledge of signed languages or linguistics, this book features: A comprehensive introduction to the sub-fields of linguistics, including sociolinguistics, linguistic structure, language change, language acquisition, and bilingualism; Examples from more than 50 of the world’s signed languages and a brief “Language in Community” snapshot in each chapter highlighting one signed language and the researchers who are documenting it; Opportunities to reflect on how language ideologies have shaped scientific inquiry and contributed to linguistic bias; Review and discussion questions, useful websites, and pointers to additional readings and resources at the end of each chapter. Understanding Signed Languages provides instructors with a primary or secondary text to enliven the discourse in introductory classes in linguistics, interpreting, deaf education, disability studies, cognitive science, human diversity, and communication sciences and disorders. Students will develop an appreciation for the language-specific and universal characteristics of signed languages and the global communities in which they emerge.

The best survey of cognitive linguistics available, this Handbook provides a thorough explanation of its rich methodology, key results, and interdisciplinary context. With in-depth coverage of the research questions, basic concepts, and various theoretical approaches, the Handbook addresses newly emerging subfields and shows their contribution to the discipline. The Handbook introduces fields of study that have become central to cognitive linguistics, such as conceptual mappings and construction grammar. It explains all the main areas of linguistic analysis traditionally expected in a full linguistics framework, and includes fields of study such as language acquisition, sociolinguistics, diachronic studies, and corpus linguistics. Setting linguistic facts within the context of many other disciplines, the Handbook will be welcomed by researchers and students in a broad range of disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, gesture studies, computational linguistics, and multimodal studies.

Sign language linguists show here that all questions relevant to the linguistic investigation of spoken languages can be asked about sign languages. Conversely, questions that sign language linguists consider - even if spoken language researchers have not asked them yet - should also be asked of spoken languages. The HSK handbook Sign Language aims to provide a concise and comprehensive overview of the state of the art in sign language linguistics. It includes 44 chapters, written by leading researchers in the field, that address issues in language typology, sign language grammar, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language documentation and transcription. Crucially, all topics are presented in a way that makes them accessible to linguists who are not familiar with sign language linguistics.