From: I.Greftegref@AVH.UNIT.NO (Irene Greftegreff)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Nordic Journal special issue
Date: 23 Nov 92 20:22:10 GMT
Reply-To: I.Greftegref@AVH.UNIT.NO (Irene Greftegreff)
X-Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference
Originator: wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com

Index Number: 25806

[Note from Bill McGarry - this is from the Sign Language Linguistics List]

I'm posting the following on behalf of the Editors.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Volume 15, No. 2 (1992) of
Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be a special issue
devoted to sign language linguistics.

This collection of papers, small though it is, fully demonstrates the
diversity of sign language linguistics and how far this field of study
has advanced. It is only appropriate that two of the papers deal with
American Sign Language (ASL), as ASL has been much more thoroughly
than any other sign language. Of the remaining three papers, one takes
its studied data from Taiwan Sign Language, one from Danish Sign Language,
and one from Norwegian Sign Language.

The papers are:

Debra Aarons, Benjamin Bahan, Judy Kegl & Carol Neidle:
"Clausal Structure and a Tier for Grammatical Marking in
American Sign Language"

Aarons et al. make five fundamental claims about the clausal structure
of American Sign Language, challenging a number of accepted claims about
ASL syntax. The authors posit an underlying clause structure for ASL,
which is argued to be recoverable on the basis of evidence of various
sorts, including constraints on the spreading of non-manual scope-
indicating signals.

Jean Ann:
"Physiological Constraints in Taiwan Sign Language Handshape-
Change"

Ann's paper deals with the physiological phonetics of signed languages,
specifically with how hand physiology constrains attested handshape-
changes in signs taken from Taiwan Sign Language. Her study should be
viewed as a prolegomenon to the study of marked and unmarked features
of handshapes and handshape-changes across sign languages.

Irene Greftegreff:
"Orientation in Indexical Signs in Norwegian Sign Language"

On the basis of her critical appraisal of some proposed analyses of hand
orientation and movement directionality in sign language phonology,
Greftegreff, drawing on her native knowledge of Norwegian sign language
(NTS), proposes to redefine the traditional "locus" (or "tab") concept as
the area which the hands move in relation to in the production of a sign,
rather than simply the place where the sign is executed.

Karen van Hoek:
"Conceptual Spaces and Pronominal Reference in American Sign
Language"

Van Hoek's' study of the use of pronominal signs in American Sign
Language has led her to adopt a new conception of the function of those
points in the signing space that are termed "referential loci". She
demonstrates that such points may invoke not only a mental
representation of a given referent but also a representation of the
conceived context in which referents are embedded.

Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen:
"Point of View in Danish Sign Language"

Engberg-Pedersen argues for the replacement of the undifferentiated term
"role shifting", as applied to sign language discourse, by terms referring to
three phenomena that should be kept apart because they do not necessarily
coincide in utterances: "shifted reference", "shifted attribution of
expressive elements", and "shifted locus".

Non-subscribers to Nordic Journal of Linguistics may purchase this
single issue by writing to:

Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget AS)
P.O. Box 1959 Toyen
N-0608 Oslo
Norway
The price is US $ 38.00, or NOK 220,-.

Thorstein Fretheim, Editor