Cover not available

Article published In: Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 19:2 (2016) ► pp.143–196

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

Distribution and duration of signs and parts of speech in Swedish Sign Language

 | Stockholm University
 | University of Helsinki
Published online: 14 April 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.19.2.01bor
In this paper, we investigate frequency and duration of signs and parts of speech in Swedish Sign Language (SSL) using the SSL Corpus. The duration of signs is correlated with frequency, with high-frequency items having shorter duration than low-frequency items. Similarly, function words (e.g. pronouns) have shorter duration than content words (e.g. nouns). In compounds, forms annotated as reduced display shorter duration. Fingerspelling duration correlates with word length of corresponding Swedish words, and frequency and word length play a role in the lexicalization of fingerspellings. The sign distribution in the SSL Corpus shows a great deal of cross-linguistic similarity with other sign languages in terms of which signs appear as high-frequency items, and which categories of signs are distributed across text types (e.g. conversation vs. narrative). We find a correlation between an increase in age and longer mean sign duration, but see no significant difference in sign duration between genders.
References (107)
References
Ahlgren, Inger & Brita Bergman. 2006. Det svenska teckenspråket. Teckenspråk och teckenspråkiga: Kunskaps- och forskningsöversikt (SOU 2006:29), 11–70. Statens offentliga utredningar.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Battison, Robbin. 1978. Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bellugi, Ursula & Susan D. Fischer. 1972. A comparison of sign language and spoken language. Cognition 1(2–3). 173–200. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergman, Brita & Östen Dahl. 1994. Ideophones in sign language? The place of reduplication in the tense-aspect system of Swedish Sign Language. In Carl Bache, Hans Basbøll & Carl-Erik Lindberg (eds.), Tense, aspect and action. Empirical and theoretical contributions to language typology, 397–422. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane. 1998. A prosodic model of sign language phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane & Carol A. Padden. 2001. Native and foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language: A lexicon with multiple origins. Foreign vocabulary in sign languages: A cross-linguistic investigation of word formation, 87–120. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Browman, Catherine P. & Louis Goldstein. 1992. Articulatory phonology: An overview. Phonetica 49(3–4). 155–180. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. 2002. Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change 14(3). 261–290. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Mechanisms of change in grammaticalization: The role of frequency. In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda (eds.), The handbook of historical linguistics, 602–623. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Frequency of use and the organization of language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Paul Hopper (eds.). 2001a. Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001b. Introduction to frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. In Joan L. Bybee & Paul Hopper (eds.), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure, 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Joanne Scheibman. 1999. The effect of usage on degrees of constituency: the reduction of don’t in English. Linguistics 37(4). 575–596. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Byrd, Dani. 1994. Relations of sex and dialect to reduction. Speech Communication 15(1–2). 39–54. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Börstell, Carl, Johanna Mesch & Lars Wallin. 2014. Segmenting the Swedish Sign Language Corpus: On the possibilities of using visual cues as a basis for syntactic segmentation. In Onno Crasborn, Eleni Efthimiou, Evita Fotinea, Thomas Hanke, Jette Kristoffersen & Johanna Mesch (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Beyond the Manual Channel, 7–10. Paris: ELRA. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Börstell, Carl, Mats Wirén, Johanna Mesch & Moa Gärdenfors. 2016. Towards an annotation of syntactic structure in Swedish Sign Language. In Eleni Efthimiou, Stavroula-Evita Fotinea, Thomas Hanke, Julie Hochgesang, Jette Kristoffersen & Johanna Mesch (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Corpus Mining, 19–24. Paris: ELRA. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Jordan Fenlon, Ramas Rentelis & Adam Schembri. 2011. Lexical frequency in British Sign Language conversation: A corpus-based approach. In Peter K. Austin, Oliver Bond, Lutz Marten & David Nathan (eds.), Proceedings of the Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 3, 81–91. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Adam Schembri & Martha E. Tyrone. 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
Crasborn, Onno. 2015. Transcription and notation methods. In Eleni Orfanidou, Bencie Woll & Gary Morgan (eds.), Research methods in sign language studies, 74–88. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno, Richard Bank, Inge Zwitserlood, Els van der Kooij, Anne de Meijer & Anna Sáfár. 2015. Annotation conventions for the Corpus NGT. Nijmegen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno, Johanna Mesch, Dafydd Waters, Els van der Kooij, Bencie Woll & Brita Bergman. 2007. Sharing sign language data online: Experiences from the ECHO project. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 12(4). 535–562. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno & Inge Zwitserlood. 2008. The Corpus NGT: An online corpus for professionals and laymen. In Onno Crasborn, Thomas Hanke, Eleni Efthimiou, Inge Zwitserlood & Ernst Thoutenhoofd (eds.), Construction and exploitation of sign language corpora. 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages, 44–49. Paris: ELDA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno, Inge Zwitserlood, Els van der Kooij, Anna Sáfár, Johan Ros, Ellen Nauta, Merel van Zuilen, Lianne van Dijken, Frouke van Winsum & Anne de Meijer. 2015. Corpus NGT gloss annotations (3rd release). Centre for Language Studies, Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno, Inge Zwitserlood & Johan Ros. 2008. Het Corpus NGT: A digital open access corpus of movies and annotations of Sign Language of the Netherlands. Nijmegen: Centre for Language Studies, Radboud Universiteit. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diessel, Holger. 2007. Frequency effects in language acquisition, language use, and diachronic change. New Ideas in Psychology 25(2). 104–123. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, Nick C. 2002. Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 241. 143–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen (ed.). 2003. Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth. 2002. Gestures in signing: The presentation gesture in Danish Sign Language. In Rolf Schulmeister & Heimo Reinitzer (eds.), Progress in sign language research: In honor of Siegmund Prillwitz, 143–162. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fenlon, Jordan, Adam Schembri, Ramas Rentelis & Kearsy Cormier. 2013. Variation in handshape and orientation in British Sign Language: The case of the “1” hand configuration. Language and Communication 33(1). 69–91. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fenlon, Jordan, Adam Schembri, Ramas Rentelis, David Vinson & Kearsy Cormier. 2014. Using conversational data to determine lexical frequency in British Sign Language: The influence of text type. Lingua 1431. 187–202. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Susan D. & Wynne Janis. 1990. Verb sandwiches in American Sign Language. In Siegmund Prillwitz & Tomas Vollhaber (eds.), Current trends in European sign language research, 279–293. Hamburg: Signum Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frishberg, Nancy. 1975. Arbitrariness and iconicity: Historical change in American Sign Language. Language 51(3). 696–719. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1979. Historical change: From iconic to arbitrary. In Edward S. Klima & Ursula Bellugi (eds.), The signs of language, 67–87. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frishberg, Nancy, Nini Hoiting & Dan I. Slobin. 2012. Transcription. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds.), Sign language: An international handbook, 1045–1075. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gahl, Susanne. 2008. “Time” and “Thyme” are not homophones: The effect of lemma frequency on word durations in spontaneous. Language 84(3). 474–496. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew & Jennifer Hill. 2006. Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grosjean, François. 1979. A study of timing in a manual and a spoken language: American Sign Language and English. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 8(4). 379–405. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Pre-established categories don’t exist: Consequences for language description and typology. Linguistic Typology 11(1). 119–132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horton, William S., Daniel H. Spieler & Elizabeth Shriberg. 2010. A corpus analysis of patterns of age-related change in conversational speech. Psychology & Aging 25(3). 708–713. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunger, Barbara. 2006. Noun/verb pairs in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS). Sign Language & Linguistics 9(1/2). 71–94. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacewicz, Ewa, Robert A. Fox, Caitlin O’Neill & Joseph Salmons. 2009. Articulation rate across dialect, age, and gender. Language Variation and Change 21(2). 233–256. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janzen, Terry. 2012. Lexicalization and grammaticalization. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds.), Sign language: An international handbook, 816–841. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jerde, Thomas E., John F. Soechting & Martha Flanders. 2003. Coarticulation in fluent fingerspelling. The Journal of Neuroscience 23(6). 2383–2393. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnston, Trevor. 2003. BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three signed languages or one? In Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde & Onno Crasborn (eds.), Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research: Selected papers from TISLR 2000, 47–69. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. The Auslan archive and corpus. In David Nathan (ed.), The endangered languages archive. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Project, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Lexical frequency in sign languages. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 17(2). 163–193. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Auslan Corpus annotation guidelines. Sydney. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnston, Trevor, Donovan Cresdee, Adam Schembri & Bencie Woll. 2015. finish variation and grammaticalization in a signed language: How far down this well-trodden pathway is Auslan (Australian Sign Language)? Language Variation and Change 271. 117–155. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnston, Trevor & Adam Schembri. 1999. On defining lexeme in a signed language. Sign Language & Linguistics 2(2). 115–185. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Australian Sign Language: An introduction to sign language linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jurafsky, Daniel, Alan Bell, Michelle Gregory & William D. Raymond. 2001. Probabilistic relations between words: Evidence from reduction in lexical production. In Joan L. Bybee & Paul J. Hopper (eds.), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure, 229–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuznetsova, Alexandra, Per Bruun Brockhoff & Rune Haubo Bojesen Christensen. 2014. lmerTest: Tests for random and fixed effects for linear mixed effect models (lmer objects of lme4 package). R package version 2.0-6. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kyle, Jim G. & Bencie Woll. 1985. Sign language: The study of deaf people and their language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lahey, Mybeth & Mirjam Ernestus. 2014. Pronunciation variation in infant-directed speech: Phonetic reduction of two highly frequent words. Language Learning and Development 10(4). 308–327. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lepic, Ryan. 2015a. Motivation in morphology: Lexical patterns in ASL and English. San Diego, CA: University of California PhD dissertation. Retrieved from [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015b. The great ASL compound hoax. In Aubrey Healey, Ricardo Napoleão de Souza, Pavlína Pešková & Moses Allen (eds.), Proceedings of the 11th High Desert Linguistics Society Conference, vol. 111, 227–250. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. 1978. Nonmanual signals and relative clauses in American Sign Language. In Patricia Siple (ed.), Understanding language through sign language research, 59–90. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. & Robert E. Johnson. 1986. American Sign Language compound formation processes, lexicalization, and phonological remnants. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 41. 445–513. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K & Robert E. Johnson. 1989. American Sign Language: The phonological base. Sign Language Studies 641. 195–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McEnery, Tony, Richard Xiao & Yukio Tono. 2006. Corpus-based language studies: An advanced resource book. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKee, David & Graeme Kennedy. 2006. The distribution of signs in New Zealand Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 6(4). 372–391. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKee, Rachel Locker & Sophia Wallingford. 2011. “So, well, whatever”: Discourse functions of palm-up in New Zealand Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 14(2). 213–247. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mesch, Johanna. 2013. Korpus för det svenska teckenspråket: Att bygga en (långsiktig) korpusdatabas. Manuscript. Stockholm: Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Manual backchannel responses in signers’ conversations in Swedish Sign Language. Language & Communication 501. 22–41. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mesch, Johanna, Maya Rohdell & Lars Wallin. 2014. Annotated files for the Swedish Sign Language Corpus. Version 2. Sign Language Section, Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mesch, Johanna & Lars Wallin. 2015. Gloss annotations in the Swedish Sign Language Corpus. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 20(1). 103–121. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mesch, Johanna, Lars Wallin & Thomas Björkstrand. 2012. Sign language resources in Sweden: Dictionary and corpus. In Onno Crasborn, Eleni Efthimiou, Evita Fotinea, Thomas Hanke, Jette Kristoffersen & Johanna Mesch (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Interactions between Corpus and Lexicon (LREC), 127–130. Paris: ELRA. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mesch, Johanna, Lars Wallin, Anna-Lena Nilsson & Brita Bergman. 2012. Dataset. Swedish Sign Language Corpus project 2009–2011 (version 1). Sign Language Section, Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller, Christopher. 2006. Sign language: Transcription, notation, and writing. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language & linguistics, 353–354. Oxford: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morford, Jill P. & James MacFarlane. 2003. Frequency characteristics of American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 3(2). 213–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Östling, Robert, Carl Börstell & Lars Wallin. 2015. Enriching the Swedish Sign Language Corpus with part of speech tags using joint Bayesian word alignment and annotation transfer. In Beáta Megyesi (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th Nordic Conference on Computational Linguistics (NODALIDA 2015), NEALT Proceedings Series 23, 263–268. Vilnius: ACL Anthology. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Östling, Robert & Mats Wirén. 2013. Compounding in a Swedish blog corpus. In Laura Álvarez López, Charlotta Seiler Brylla & Philip Shaw (eds.), Computer-mediated discourse across languages, 45–63. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pfau, Roland & Markus Steinbach. 2011. Grammaticalization in sign languages. In Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog (eds.), Handbook of grammaticalization, 683–695. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pfau, Roland, Markus Steinbach & Annika Herrmann (eds.). 2016. A matter of complexity: Subordination in sign languages. Berlin & Preston: De Gruyter Mouton & Ishara Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 2002. Word-specific phonetics. In Aditi Lahiri (ed.), Laboratory Phonology VII, 101–140. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quinto-Pozos, David. 2010. Rates of fingerspelling in American Sign Language. Poster presented at Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Linguistics 10 (TISLR10) , Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
R Core Team. 2014. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramig, Lorraine A. 1983. Effects of physiological aging on speaking and reading rates. Journal of Communication Disorders 16(3). 217–226. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ryttervik, Magnus. 2015. Gesten PU@g i svenskt teckenspråk – en studie i dess form och funktion. Stockholm: Stockholm University MA thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy. 1989. Phonological representation of the sign: Linearity and nonlinearity in sign language phonology. Dordrecht: Foris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. The phonological organization of sign languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 6(3). 162–182. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schembri, Adam & Onno Crasborn. 2010. Issues in creating annotation standards for sign language description. In Phillipe Dreuw, Eleni Efthimiou, Thomas Hanke, Trevor Johnston, Gregorio Martinéz Ruiz & Adam Schembri (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th Workshop of the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Corpora and Sign Language Technologies, 212–216. Paris: ELRA. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schembri, Adam, Jordan Fenlon, Ramas Rentelis & Kearsy Cormier. 2014. British Sign Language Corpus Project: A corpus of digital video data and annotations of British Sign Language 2008–2014 (Second edition). London: University College London. [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schembri, Adam, David McKee, Rachel McKee, Sara Pivac, Trevor Johnston & Della Goswell. 2009. Phonological variation and change in Australian and New Zealand Sign Languages: The location variable. Language Variation and Change 21(2). 193. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwager, Waldemar & Ulrike Zeshan. 2008. Word classes in sign languages: Criteria and classifications. Studies in Language 32(3). 509–545. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sigurd, Bengt, Mats Eeg-Olofsson & Joost van de Weijer. 2004. Word length, sentence length and frequency – Zipf revisited. Studia Linguistica 58(1). 37–52. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sjons, Johan. 2013. Automatic induction of word classes in Swedish Sign Language. Stockholm: Stockholm University MA thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tkachman, Oksana & Wendy Sandler. 2013. The noun-verb distinction in two young sign languages. Gesture 13(3). 253–286. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tyrone, Martha E. & Claude E. Mauk. 2010. Sign lowering and phonetic reduction in American Sign Language. Journal of Phonetics 38(2). 317–328. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wallin, Lars. 1982. Sammansatta tecken i svenska teckenspråket. Forskning om teckenspråk VIII. (Forskning Om Teckenspråk). Stockholm: Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wallin, Lars & Johanna Mesch. 2014. Annoteringskonventioner för teckenspråkstexter. Version 5 . [Annotation guidelines for sign language texts]. Unpublished. Projektet Korpus för det svenska teckenspråket 2009–2011 (version 1). [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Annoteringskonventioner för teckenspråkstexter. Forskning om teckenspråk (FoT) XXIV, Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vermeerbergen, Myriam, Lorraine Leeson & Onno Crasborn (eds.). 2007. Simultaneity in signed languages: Form and function. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilbur, Ronnie B. 1999. Stress in ASL: Empirical evidence and linguistic issues. Language and Speech 42(2–3). 229–250. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilbur, Ronnie B. & Susan Bobbitt Nolen. 1986. The duration of syllables in American Sign Language. Language and Speech 29(3). 263–280. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilcox, Sherman. 1992. The phonetics of fingerspelling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wittenburg, Peter, Hennie Brugman, Albert Russel, Alex Klassmann & Han Sloetjes. 2006. ELAN: A professional framework for multimodality research. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2006) , 1556–1559. [URL].
Woodward, Jr., James C. 1976. Signs of change: Historical variation in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 101. 81–94. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wright, Charles E. 1979. Duration differences between rare and common words and their implications for the interpretation of word frequency effects. Memory & Cognition 7(6). 411–419. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zakia, Richard D. & Ralph Norman Haber. 1971. Sequential letter and word recognition in deaf and hearing subjects. Perception & Psychophysics 9(1). 110–114. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zeshan, Ulrike (ed.). 2006. Interrogative and negative constructions in sign languages. Nijmegen: Ishara Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zipf, George K. 1935. The psycho-biology of language: An introduction to dynamic philology. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1949. Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (33)

Cited by 33 other publications

Schönström, Krister & Ingela Holmström
2025. Fingerspelling as a pathway to deaf children’s reading: a scoping review. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education DOI logo
Simper-Allen, Pia & Carl Börstell
2025. Depicting handshapes for animate referents in Swedish Sign Language. Open Linguistics 11:1 DOI logo
Zou, Yue & Hao Lin
2025. A basic General Service List for Chinese Sign Language. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 30:3 ► pp. 405 ff. DOI logo
Becker, Laura
2024. Levshina, Natalia: Communicative Efficiency: Language Structure and Use . Linguistic Typology 28:2 ► pp. 367 ff. DOI logo
Börstell, Carl
2023. Lexical comprehension within and across sign languages of Belgium, China and the Netherlands. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 8:1 DOI logo
Börstell, Carl
2024. Better letter: iconicity in the manual alphabets of American Sign Language and Swedish Sign Language. Language and Cognition 16:4 ► pp. 1272 ff. DOI logo
Börstell, Carl
2024. Finding continuers in Swedish Sign Language. Linguistics Vanguard 10:1 ► pp. 537 ff. DOI logo
Ferrara, Lindsay, Benjamin Anible & Lena Mei Kalvenes Anda
2023. Exploring sign-writing contact and multilingualism in the Norwegian Deaf community. In Advances in Sign Language Corpus Linguistics [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 108], ► pp. 66 ff. DOI logo
Flaherty, Molly, Asha Sato & Simon Kirby
2023. Documenting a Reduction in Signing Space in Nicaraguan Sign Language Using Depth and Motion Capture. Cognitive Science 47:4 DOI logo
Lutzenberger, Hannah, Katie Mudd, Rose Stamp & Adam Charles Schembri
2023. The social structure of signing communities and lexical variation: A cross-linguistic comparison of three unrelated sign languages. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 8:1 DOI logo
Malaia, Evie A., Joshua D. Borneman, Emre Kurtoglu, Sevgi Z. Gurbuz, Darrin Griffin, Chris Crawford & Ali C. Gurbuz
2023. Complexity in sign languages. Linguistics Vanguard 9:s1 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Mesch, Johanna
2023. Creating a multifaceted corpus of Swedish Sign Language. In Advances in Sign Language Corpus Linguistics [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 108], ► pp. 242 ff. DOI logo
Ferrer-i-Cancho, Ramon, David Lusseau & Brenda McCowan
2022. Parallels of human language in the behavior of bottlenose dolphins. Linguistic Frontiers 5:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Gappmayr, Paris, Amy M. Lieberman, Jennie Pyers & Naomi K. Caselli
2022. Do parents modify child-directed signing to emphasize iconicity?. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Hou, Lynn
2022. LOOKing for multi-word expressions in American Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 33:2 ► pp. 291 ff. DOI logo
Hou, Lynn
2022. A Usage-Based Proposal for Argument Structure of Directional Verbs in American Sign Language. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Oomen, Marloes
2022. Recurring iconic mapping patterns within and across verb types in German Sign Language. In Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems [Iconicity in Language and Literature, 18], ► pp. 289 ff. DOI logo
Safryghin, Alexandra, Catharine Cross, Brittany Fallon, Raphaela Heesen, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho & Catherine Hobaiter
2022. Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation. Royal Society Open Science 9:11 DOI logo
Semple, Stuart, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho & Morgan L. Gustison
2022. Linguistic laws in biology. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 37:1 ► pp. 53 ff. DOI logo
Makaroğlu, Bahtiyar
2021. What the frequency list can teach us about Turkish sign language?. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 57:4 ► pp. 619 ff. DOI logo
Makaroğlu, Bahtiyar
2023. The next station: chunking of değİl ‘not’ collocations in Turkish Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 34:3-4 ► pp. 371 ff. DOI logo
ÖNAL, Erdem & Bahtiyar MAKAROĞLU
2021. A Lexicological Approach to Look-up Frequency of Turkish Sign Language Dictionary Users. Dil Eğitimi ve Araştırmaları Dergisi 7:1 ► pp. 193 ff. DOI logo
Emmorey, Karen, Kurt Winsler, Katherine J. Midgley, Jonathan Grainger & Phillip J. Holcomb
2020. Neurophysiological Correlates of Frequency, Concreteness, and Iconicity in American Sign Language. Neurobiology of Language 1:2 ► pp. 249 ff. DOI logo
OCCHINO, CORRINE, BENJAMIN ANIBLE & JILL P. MORFORD
2020. The role of iconicity, construal, and proficiency in the online processing of handshape. Language and Cognition 12:1 ► pp. 114 ff. DOI logo
Bosworth, Rain G., Charles E. Wright & Karen R. Dobkins
2019. Analysis of the visual spatiotemporal properties of American Sign Language. Vision Research 164 ► pp. 34 ff. DOI logo
Börstell, Carl, Tommi Jantunen, Vadim Kimmelman, Vanja de Lint, Johanna Mesch & Marloes Oomen
2019. Transitivity prominence within and across modalities. Open Linguistics 5:1 ► pp. 666 ff. DOI logo
Casas, Bernardino, Antoni Hernández-Fernández, Neus Català, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho & Jaume Baixeries
2019. Polysemy and brevity versus frequency in language. Computer Speech & Language 58 ► pp. 19 ff. DOI logo
Fenlon, Jordan, Kensy Cooperrider, Jon Keane, Diane Brentari & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2019. Comparing sign language and gesture: Insights from pointing. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4:1 DOI logo
Heesen, Raphaela, Catherine Hobaiter, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho & Stuart Semple
2019. Linguistic laws in chimpanzee gestural communication. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286:1896 ► pp. 20182900 ff. DOI logo
Lepic, Ryan
2019. A usage-based alternative to “lexicalization” in sign language linguistics. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4:1 DOI logo
Lepic, Ryan
2025. Idioms and other constructions in American Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 36:2 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Cooperrider, Kensy, Natasha Abner & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2018. The Palm-Up Puzzle: Meanings and Origins of a Widespread Form in Gesture and Sign. Frontiers in Communication 3 DOI logo
Östling, Robert, Carl Börstell & Servane Courtaux
2018. Visual Iconicity Across Sign Languages: Large-Scale Automated Video Analysis of Iconic Articulators and Locations. Frontiers in Psychology 9 DOI logo

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.

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