PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/133714 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-10-01 and may be subject to change. The ubiquity of mouthings in NGT A corpus study Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6111 Trans 10 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lotschool.nl Cover illustration: (stemmed) word cloud of this dissertation, from tagul.com. ISBN: 978-94-6093-158-1 NUR 616 Copyright © 2014: Richard Bank. All rights reserved. The ubiquity of mouthings in NGT A corpus study Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. Th. L. M. Engelen volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 30 januari 2015 om 12.30 uur precies door Richard Bank Geboren op 1 augustus 1969 te Amsterdam Promotor: Prof. dr. Roeland van Hout Copromotor: Dr. Onno Crasborn Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. Pieter Muysken Prof. dr. Jens Heßmann (Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal, Duitsland) Prof. dr. Bencie Woll (DCAL, University College London, Groot-Brittannië) Table of contents Dankwoord ..................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Sign languages: a general introduction ..................................................................... 2 1.1.1 A short history of sign languages...................................................................... 3 1.1.2 Research and recognition .................................................................................. 4 1.1.3 The recent history of NGT ................................................................................ 5 1.1.4 Deaf education in the Netherlands and influence of spoken language .......... 6 1.2. Mouth actions, Mouthings and Mouth Gestures ................................................... 8 1.2.1 Mouth actions, mouth gestures, mouthings .................................................... 9 1.2.2 The linguistic status of mouthings ................................................................. 10 1.2.3 Sign language without mouthings? ................................................................ 11 1.3 The Corpus NGT and its annotation...................................................................... 12 1.3.1 Written, spoken and signed language corpora .............................................. 13 1.3.2 Construction and contents of the Corpus NGT ............................................ 14 1.3.3 Annotation of mouth actions ......................................................................... 15 1.4 Research questions and outline of this thesis ......................................................... 17 1.4.1 Variation in mouth actions with manual signs (Chapter 2) ......................... 18 1.4.2 The spreading of mouthings (Chapter 3)....................................................... 18 1.4.3 The prominence of spoken language elements (Chapter 4) ......................... 19 1.4.4 Bimodal code-mixing (Chapter 5).................................................................. 19 Chapter 2: Variation in mouth actions with manual signs .................................. 21 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 21 2.1.1 Background ...................................................................................................... 21 2.1.2 Research questions .......................................................................................... 24 vi | Table of contents 2.2 Methodology and data description ......................................................................... 26 2.3 Results....................................................................................................................... 31 2.3.1 Coding categories and quantitative results .................................................... 31 2.3.2 Mouthing variants ........................................................................................... 34 2.3.3 Temporal reduction ........................................................................................ 36 2.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 38 2.4.1 Frequency ......................................................................................................... 38 2.4.2 Variation .......................................................................................................... 39 2.4.3 Temporal reduction ........................................................................................ 40 2.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 42 2.5.1 General conclusion .......................................................................................... 42 2.5.2 Concluding remarks on methodology ........................................................... 43 Chapter 3: Alignment of two languages: The spreading of mouthings ................ 47 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 47 3.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 52 3.2.1 The Corpus NGT ............................................................................................. 52 3.2.2 Participants ...................................................................................................... 53 3.2.3 Data .................................................................................................................. 54 3.3 Results on direction and scope ............................................................................... 57 3.3.1 Direction of spreading..................................................................................... 58 3.3.2 Scope of spreading ........................................................................................... 59 3.3.3 Spreading over pointing signs ........................................................................ 59 3.3.4 Regressive spreading at the sign level ............................................................. 60 3.4 Results on the relative length of spreadings ............................................................ 61 3.4.1 Length of spreadings ....................................................................................... 61 3.4.2 Length of signs ................................................................................................. 62 3.5 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 63 3.5.1 Direction and scope of spreadings ................................................................. 63 3.5.2 Spreading over PT and relative length of spreadings ..................................... 64 3.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 65 Table of contents | vii Chapter 4: The prominence of spoken language elements in a sign language ..... 67 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 67 4.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 73 4.3 Results....................................................................................................................... 75 4.3.1 Results on mouth action frequency as compared to manual signs............... 75 4.3.2 Results on mouthing frequencies for various sociolinguistic variables........ 76 4.3.3 Results for combinations of mouth actions and pointings ........................... 78 4.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 81 4.4.1 Proportion of mouth actions and mouthings compared to signs ................ 81 4.4.2 Mouthing frequencies related to various sociolinguistic variables ............... 82 4.4.3 Combinations of mouth actions and pointing signs ..................................... 83 4.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 84 Chapter 5: Bimodal code-mixing: speech supported signing is the norm for deaf NGT signers ........................................................................................................ 87 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 87 5.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 92 5.3 Results....................................................................................................................... 94 5.3.1 Standard mouthings ........................................................................................ 95 5.3.2 Solo mouthings used in backchanneling ........................................................ 96 5.3.3