Cover not available

In:Constructions in Contact 2: Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition
Edited by Hans C. Boas and Steffen Höder
[Constructional Approaches to Language 30] 2021
► pp. 267–305

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

From letters to families

Initialized signs in American Sign Language

 | Gallaudet University
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.30.09lep
Abstract
This study analyzes a database of initialized signs, which are formed with handshapes corresponding to English letters, collected from an ASL dictionary. ASL handshapes are classified as either primarily used for initialization, such as the R handshape, or rarely used for initialization, such as the X handshape. Additionally, initialized signs are shown to forge kind-of and whole-part relationships with existing ASL signs. An example is biology, which derives from ASL science, reflecting that ‘biology is a kind of science’. These facts about initialized signs are analyzed in terms of constructional schemas, capturing properties that are shared among ASL signs and explaining productive instances of initialization (and de-initialization) in ASL.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language
    • 2.1Loans, loan translations, and semantic borrowings
    • 2.2Fingerspelling and initialization
    • 2.3Initialization in its social context
  • 3.A database study of initialized signs in American Sign Language
    • 3.1Identifying initialized signs in a dictionary
    • 3.2Semantic analysis of initialized signs
      • 3.2.1Metonymic extension
      • 3.2.2Networks of initialized signs
    • 3.3Summary of the dictionary study
  • 4.Constructional analysis of initialized signs
    • 4.1Multilingualism in Construction Grammar
    • 4.2Initialized signs are blends in a constructional network
    • 4.3The functions of alphabetic handshapes
    • 4.4Initialized signs in a dynamic system
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (54)
References
Algeo, J. (1977). Blends, a structural and systemic view. American Speech, 52(1/2), 47–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ann, J. (2001). Bilingualism and language contact. In C. Lucas (Ed.), The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages (pp. 33–59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arndt-Lappe, S., & Plag, I. (2013). The role of prosodic structure in the formation of English blends. English Language and Linguistics, 17(3), 537–563. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Battison, R. (1978). Lexical Borrowing in American Sign Language. Burtonsville: Linstock Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bélanger, N. N., & Rayner, K. (2015). What eye movements reveal about deaf readers. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(3), 220–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bellugi, U., & Newkirk, D. (1981). Formal devices for creating new signs in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 30(1), 1–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergen, B. K. (2004). The psychological reality of phonaesthemes. Language, 80(2), 290–311. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Booij, G. E. (2010). Construction Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [URL]
Brentari, D., & Padden, C. A. (2001). Native and foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language: A lexicon with multiple origins. In D. Brentari (Ed.), Foreign Vocabulary in Sign Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation of Word Formation (pp. 87–119). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, M., & Cormier, K. (2017). Sociolinguistic variation in the nativisation of BSL fingerspelling. Open Linguistics, 3(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2006). From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. Language, 82(4), 711–733. [URL]
Cormier, K., Schembri, A. C., & Tyrone, M. E. (2008). One hand or two?: Nativisation of fingerspelling in ASL and BANZSL. Sign Language & Linguistics, 11(1), 3–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W. (1993). The role of domains in the interpretation of metaphors and metonymies. Cognitive Linguistics, 4(4), 335–370. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, E. (2014). Recycling utterances: A speaker’s guide to sentence processing. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(4). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frishberg, N., & Gough, B. (2000). Morphology in American Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics, 3(1), 103–131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2019). Explain Me This: Creativity, Competition, and the Partial Productivity of Constructions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grosjean, F. (1992). The bilingual & the bicultural person in the hearing & in the deaf world. Sign Language Studies, 77(1), 307–320. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Bilingualism, biculturalism, and deafness. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(2), 133–145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gustason, G. (1983). Manual English and American Sign Language: Where do we go from here? In Language in Sign: An International Perspective on Sign Language (pp. 163–172).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M. (2009). Lexical borrowing: concepts and issues. In M. Haspelmath, & U. Tadmor (Eds.), Loanwords in the World’s Languages: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 35–54). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janda, L. A. (2011). Metonymy in word-formation. Cognitive Linguistics, 22(2). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, R., Liddell, S., & Erting, C. (1989). Unlocking the curriculum: Principles for achieving access in deaf education. Gallaudet Research Institute Working Paper, 89(3).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klima, E. S., & Bellugi, U. (1979). The Signs of Language. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kristiansen, G. (2008). Style-shifting and shifting styles: A socio-cognitive approach to lectal variation. In G. Kristiansen, & R. Dirven (Eds.), Cognitive Sociolinguistics (Vol. 39, pp. 45–90). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehrer, A. (2007). Blendalicious. In J. Munat (Ed.), Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (Vol. 58, pp. 115–133). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lepic, R. (2015). Motivation in morphology: Lexical patterns in ASL and English [University of California, San Diego]. [URL]
(2016). Lexical blends and lexical patterns in English and in American Sign Language. Quo Vadis Morphology?: On-Line Proceedings of the Tenth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM10), 98–111. [URL]
(2019). A usage-based alternative to “lexicalization” in sign language linguistics. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lepic, R., Börstell, C., Belsitzman, G., & Sandler, W. (2016). Taking meaning in hand: Iconic motivations in two-handed signs. Sign Language & Linguistics, 19(1), 37–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lepic, R., & Occhino, C. (2018). A Construction Morphology approach to sign language analysis. In G. Booij (Ed.), The Construction of Words (Vol. 4, pp. 141–172). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lucas, C., Bayley, R., & Valli, C. (2003). What’s Your Sign for Pizza? An Introduction to Variation in American Sign Language. Washington: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lucas, C., & Valli, C. (1992). Language Contact in the American Deaf Community. Cambridge: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morford, J. P., Occhino, C., Zirnstein, M., Kroll, J. F., Wilkinson, E., & Piñar, P. (2019). What is the source of bilingual cross-language activation in deaf bilinguals? The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 24(4), 356–365. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Occhino, C. (2017). An introduction to Embodied Cognitive Phonology: claw-5 hand-shape distribution in ASL and Libras. Complutense Journal of English Studies, 25(0). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Occhino, C., Anible, B., & Morford, J. P. (2020). The role of iconicity, construal, and proficiency in the online processing of handshape. Language and Cognition, 12(1), 114–137. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Padden, C. A. (1998). The ASL lexicon. Sign Language & Linguistics, 1(1), 39–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). Learning to fingerspell twice: young children's acquisition of fingerspelling. In B. Schick, M. Marschark, & P. E. Spencer (Eds.), Advances in the Sign-Language Development of Deaf Children (pp. 189–201). Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Padden, C., & Gunsauls, D. C. (2003). How the alphabet came to be used in a sign language. Sign Language Studies, 4(1), 10–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peirsman, Y., & Geeraerts, D. (2006). Metonymy as a prototypical category. Cognitive Linguistics, 17(3). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quinto-Pozos, D., & Adam, R. (2015). Sign languages in contact. In C. Lucas, & A. Schembri (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and Deaf Communities (pp. 29–60). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaffer, B. (2018). Tracing the origins of legal terminology in ASL: Perspectives for ASL/English interpreters. Journal of Interpretation, 26(1).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaw, E., & Delaporte, Y. (2010). New perspectives on the history of American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 11(2), 158–204. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). A Historical and Etymological Dictionary of American Sign Language. Washington: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stokoe, W. C. (2005). Sign language structure: an outline of the visual communication systems of the American deaf. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 10(1), 3–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Supalla, S. J. (1990). The arbitrary name sign system in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 67(1), 99–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tennant, R. A., & Brown, M. G. (2010). American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary (2nd ed). Washington: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, E. C., & Trousdale, G. (2013). Constructionalization and Constructional Changes (First edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilcox, S. (1992). The Phonetics of Fingerspelling. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (1980). Some sociolinguistic aspects of French and American Sign Languages. In Recent Perspectives on American Sign Language (pp. 103–118).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Höder
2025. Diasystematic Construction Grammar at work. In Constructions in Contact 3 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 40], ► pp. 22 ff. DOI logo
Lepic, Ryan
2025. Idioms and other constructions in American Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 36:2 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Occhino, Corrine, Ryan Lidster, Leah C. Geer, Jason Listman & Peter C. Hauser
2024. Development of the American Sign Language Fingerspelling and Numbers Comprehension Test (ASL FaN-CT). Language Testing 41:1 ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue