This paper explores a range of Foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language and demonstrates that there are ways of accounting for them without undermining the fundamental independence of a natural sign language. Arguments are made for a unified lexicon in which Native and Foreign vocabulary are arranged schematically as extending from a core to a periphery with gradations of conformity to phonological constraints on ASL forms. At the conclusion of the paper there is a brief review of issues concerning the presence of Foreign vocabulary in natural sign languages.
Lee, Brittany, Sofia E. Ortega, Priscilla M. Martinez, Katherine J. Midgley, Phillip J. Holcomb & Karen Emmorey
2025. Neural associations between fingerspelling, print, and signs: An ERP priming study with deaf readers. Brain and Language 268 ► pp. 105610 ff.
Yang, Xiaoxuan
2025. Toward a Modality-Neutral Theory: Reconstructing Hockett’s Design Features of Human Language Through Multimodal Critique. Literature Language and Cultural Studies 2:1 ► pp. 17 ff.
Tuveri, Franco
2024. A Comprehensive Review of Sign Language Production. Journal of Computer-Assisted Linguistic Research 8 ► pp. 1 ff.
Boria, Yanina & Carlos Muñoz Pérez
2023. The Morpho-phonology of Nominal Plurality in Argentinian Sign Language (LSA). In Formal Approaches to Languages of South America, ► pp. 25 ff.
Ferrara, Lindsay, Benjamin Anible & Lena Mei Kalvenes Anda
2023. Language Prejudice and Language Structure: On Missing and Emerging Conjunctions in Libras and Other Sign Languages. In Understanding Linguistic Prejudice, ► pp. 157 ff.
2022. American Sign Language Alphabet Recognition Using Inertial Motion Capture System with Deep Learning. Inventions 7:4 ► pp. 112 ff.
Lee, Brittany & Kristen Secora
2022. Fingerspelling and Its Role in Translanguaging. Languages 7:4 ► pp. 278 ff.
Rubio-Fernandez, Paula, Anne Wienholz, Carey M. Ballard, Simon Kirby & Amy M. Lieberman
2022. Adjective position and referential efficiency in American Sign Language: Effects of adjective semantics, sign type and age of sign exposure. Journal of Memory and Language 126 ► pp. 104348 ff.
2022. Lexical Competition Without Phonology: Masked Orthographic Neighbor Priming With Deaf Readers. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 27:2 ► pp. 151 ff.
Brentari, Diane, Laura Horton & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2021. Crosslinguistic similarity and variation in the simultaneous morphology of sign languages. The Linguistic Review 37:4 ► pp. 571 ff.
Sehyr, Zed Sevcikova & Karen Emmorey
2021. The effects of multiple linguistic variables on picture naming in American Sign Language. Behavior Research Methods 54:5 ► pp. 2502 ff.
2017. A theory-driven model of handshape similarity. Phonology 34:2 ► pp. 221 ff.
Sehyr, Zed Sevcikova, Jennifer Petrich & Karen Emmorey
2017. Fingerspelled and Printed Words Are Recoded into a Speech-based Code in Short-term Memory. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 22:1 ► pp. 72 ff.
2016. I use my space not yours: Use of gesture space for referential identification among children with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 26 ► pp. 33 ff.
Swabey, Laurie, Brenda Nicodemus, Marty M. Taylor & Daniel Gile
2013. Bimodal Bilingualism and the Frequency-Lag Hypothesis. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 18:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Roos, Carin
2013. Young Deaf Children's Fingerspelling in Learning to Read and Write: An Ethnographic Study in a Signing Setting. Deafness & Education International 15:3 ► pp. 149 ff.
Roos, Carin
2014. A Sociocultural Perspective on Young Deaf Children's Fingerspelling: An Ethnographic Study in a Signing Setting. Deafness & Education International 16:2 ► pp. 86 ff.
Berent, Gerald P.
2012. Sign Language–Spoken Language Bilingualism and the Derivation of Bimodally Mixed Sentences. In The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, ► pp. 351 ff.
Cormier, Kearsy, David Quinto-Pozos, Zed Sevcikova & Adam Schembri
2012. Lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation processes in sign languages: Comparing depicting constructions and viewpoint gestures. Language & Communication 32:4 ► pp. 329 ff.
Emmorey, K. & J. A. F. Petrich
2012. Processing Orthographic Structure: Associations Between Print and Fingerspelling. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 17:2 ► pp. 194 ff.
Emmorey, Karen, Jennifer A.F. Petrich & Tamar H. Gollan
2012. Bilingual processing of ASL–English code-blends: The consequences of accessing two lexical representations simultaneously. Journal of Memory and Language 67:1 ► pp. 199 ff.
Morere, Donna A. & Rachel Roberts
2012. Fingerspelling. In Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals, ► pp. 179 ff.
Quinto-Pozos, David, Anjali J. Forber-Pratt & Jenny L. Singleton
2011. Do Developmental Communication Disorders Exist in the Signed Modality? Perspectives From Professionals. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 42:4 ► pp. 423 ff.
Hohenberger, Annette
2008. The word in sign language: empirical evidence and theoretical controversies. Linguistics 46:2
Meier, R.P.
2006. Modality Issues in Signed and Spoken Language. In Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, ► pp. 197 ff.
Emmorey, Karen, Thomas Grabowski, Stephen McCullough, Hanna Damasio, Laura L.B. Ponto, Richard D. Hichwa & Ursula Bellugi
2003. Neural systems underlying lexical retrieval for sign language. Neuropsychologia 41:1 ► pp. 85 ff.
Channon, Rachel
2002. Beads on a string? Representations of repetition in spoken and signed languages. In Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages, ► pp. 65 ff.
Meier, Richard P.
2002. Why different, why the same? Explaining effects and non-effects of modality upon linguistic structure in sign and speech. In Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages, ► pp. 1 ff.
Meier, Richard P., Kearsy Cormier & David Quinto-Pozos
2002. Phonological structure in signed languages. In Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages, ► pp. 27 ff.
[no author supplied]
2011. The phonetics and phonology of the TİD (Turkish Sign Language) bimanual alphabet. In Formational Units in Sign Languages, ► pp. 43 ff.
[no author supplied]
2022. Multilingualism. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 27 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 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.
