NZSL311 Key Terms Wks 1-6

Linguistics

Scientific study of language

Descriptive

Describe how language is used based on empirical evidence from speakers rather than intuition: what linguists aim to do

Prescriptive

Evaluate or authorise how language ‘should’ be used (based on speaker intuition or assumption: what linguists try to avoid

Levels of structure

Levels of focus for analysing patterns in language: micro >macro

Discourse

How language is used in talk/texts in various situations

Syntax

Structure of sentences – what is acceptable/typical word order?

Morphology

Study of the smallest meaningful units in a language and processes for combining them to create new word meanings

Phonology

Study of the smallest formational units (sounds/ sign parts) in a language and rules for combining these in words

Semantics

Study of meaning

Sociolinguistics

Study of relationship between language and society: use of lang for social purposes, identity, variation, change, attitudes …

Metalinguistic awareness

Knowledge ‘about’ a language, ability to describe language 

Language modality

The mode is which language is physically produced: aural/verbal (spoken) v. visual/gestural (signed)

Gesture

Gesticulation with the hands to emphasise and show, often with speech. Cultural gestures. Variable in form. Not combined.

Sign

Conventional (shared) symbol with contextual meanings, used with other signs in sentence, carries the main message

Primary sign language

Naturally evolving SL of a multi-generational deaf community

Artificial sign system

Artificially contrived system for coding spoken language in signs

Alternate (shared) sign language

Signs developed in hearing communities for specific purposes (eg, silent rites, cross-language contact). Deaf people in this context share this SL with hearing. Usually limited in scope

Who is Bill Stokoe and M. Collins'-Ahlgren?

First researchers to describe ASL/ NZSL (respectively) in terms of linguistic structure, 1960s/ 1980s. Named the languages

Discourse

Unit of language longer than a sentence: talk, interaction, conversation, use of language in context

Coherence

Overall clarity and meaningfulness of a text (passage of talk or writing).

Cohesion

Features of lexicon and grammar that link different parts of a text together

Conversation regulators

Conventional (shared) cues that members of a language community use and recognize to manage turn-taking and interaction in conversation

Discourse Markers

Lexical items that shape the direction of the discourse – including conjunctions, fillers, and in NZSL, NMS such as nod

Collaborative floor

Group interaction where overlap and backchannel are the norm – speakers can ‘self-select’ to contribute to the conversation (typically informal context, but also cultural and gender factors may be relevant)

Single Floor

Group interaction where overlap is infrequent- one speaker at a time is the norm (typically more formal contexts, but also cultural and gender factors may be relevant)

Ellipsis

Omission of words or elements of a sentence that will be understood from the context

Anaphoric reference

Means of referring back to referents or antecedents in the text – usually pronouns (and spatial reference in SL)

Spatial mapping

Associating areas of the signing space with referents in a text – eg, persons, timeframes, locations, events, ideas

Constructed action

Re-telling/ enactment of action and talk in SL (also known as role-shift, referential shift, perspective-taking)

Back-channel

Listener feedback that signal attention (sounds/ signs/ non-manual signals)

Phonology

Study of the smallest formational units (sounds / sign parts) in a language and rules for combining these in words.

Phonetics

Study of the physical properties of word / sign formation.

Sign Parameter

The equivalent of a phoneme – the smallest part of a sign.

HOLM

The four major sign parameters: handshape, orientation (palm), location, movement

Unmarked handshapes

A set of handshapes that are easy to perceive and produce, and that are frequently used in most sign languages. Unmarked handshapes are the first to be acquired by children, and they are used to form signs in many locations

Marked handshapes

Handshapes that are more complex to perceive and produce, less frequent, produced on the dominant hand only, often in more central locations, and acquired later

Minimal pair

Two words or signs that differ in only one phoneme / sign parameter. Minimal pairs are used to determine which phonemes are ‘contrastive’ in the language

Contrastive

If two phonemes are in contrastive distribution, replacing one phoneme with the other results in a change in meaning in the word.

Manual Sign

A sign produced by the hands, consisting of the HOLM sign parameters

Non-manual sign

A sign produced by other parts of the body, e.g. head, shoulders, body, eyebrows, eyes, mouth, cheeks

NMF or NMS

Non-manual features or non-manual signals

Multi-channel sign

A sign in which NMF are a regular ‘fixed’ part of the sign formation

Formation constraint

A sign in which NMF are a regular ‘fixed’ part of the sign formation

Symmetry constraint

For signs made with two hands, when both hands are moving, all HOLM parameters will be the same. Movement can be simultaneous or alternating. The sign is symmetrical.

Dominance constraint

For signs made with two hands, if the handshapes are different, the dominant hand is more active and the non-dominant hand 2 is passive; the dominant hand’s handshape is usually more marked.

Dominant Hand

A signer’s ‘strong’ hand (usually the hand with which they write). This is the most active hand in producing signs.

Non-dominant

A signer’s ‘weak’ hand.

One-handed sign

A sign produced with the dominant hand only

Two-handed signs

A sign that meets the dominance constraint (asymmetrical; the dominant hand is more active)

Double-handed sign

A sign that meets the symmetry constraint (HOLM parameters are the same for both hands).

Syllable

A unit of word pronunciation or sign production, consisting of segments.

Segment

A part of a syllable broken down into distinct bundles of phonemes. Sound syllables are made up of Consonant and Vowel segments. Sign syllables are made up of Movement and Hold segments

Monosyllabic

A word or sign with one syllable

Assimilation

A change in handshape or location to blend a sign with a previous or following sign

Location drop

A sign is produced lower in the signing space (because of assimilation with a previous or following sign)

Deletion

Dropping a hold or movement segment from a sign

Morphology

Study of the smallest meaningful units in language and the processes by which these combine to create new meanings

Morpheme

Smallest meaningful unit or segment: a word or part of a word.

Phonomorpheme

In signed languages some phonemes (eg, handshape or movement) have intrinsic meaning > therefore a blend of phoneme/ morpheme.

Free morpheme

Signs/ Words that stand alone. Root morphemes can be modified/ (eg. learn, cat). Non-root morphemes can’t be modified (eg. at, to, whose )

Bound Morpheme

A morpheme that is always attached to another morpheme (eg. un-, dis-, -ness, -ing). Includes affixes (prefix, suffix)

Monomorphemic sign

Sign comprising a single morpheme (eg. communicate, buy, girl)

Bi-morphemic sign

Sign comprising 2 morphemes (eg. miscommunicate, put-there)

Polymorphemic

Signs that contain multiple morphemes or units of meaning (usually applied to classifier constructions)

Derivation

Creating a new word or changing word class by adding a morpheme (eg. dry > dryer, game > gaming, live > liveable). In NZSL – movement reduplication to create noun from verb (lock > key; open-door > door)

Influence

Modify the meaning of a sign by adding bound morphemes. Inflection - especially change in movement, loc – is prevalent in signed languages (eg. agreement verbs, temporal aspect)

Compounding

Two free morphemes combine to create a new meaning (eg. work^shop, face^book, temper^bad)

Lexical extension

Existing sign acquires a new or extended meaning (eg. world > global; book > library; report > media)

Reduplication

Repetition of movement in a sign. Used for inflection: plural, temporal, distributive agreement, derivation: verb >noun

Temporal aspect

Shows the internal temporal characteristics of an action (verb): frequent, habitual, continuous, durative

Manner & degree (adverbial inflection)

Adverbial inflection shows how an action is done (manner) and intensity (degree). These are often combined in NZSL, usually through change to movement and addition of NMF

What are the three types of verbs?

Plain – form of the sign (HOLM) always remains the same.

Agreement – in some transitive verbs (involving two persons) start and end points of the sign ‘agree’ with the agent/ recipient of an action (person) – eg. pay, give, look-at, help, visit

Spatial – start/end points of the verb alter to show source and goal (location) – eg. go-to, move, drop-off, throw, operate Some linguists treat 2 & 3 as one category: ‘indicating verbs’

Lexicon

The words or vocabulary of a language

Core (native) lexicon

Vocabulary that is listed in a SL dictionary. These signs have a conventional form. Also known as ‘frozen’ or ‘established’ lexicon. These signs usually conform to the phonological constraints of symmetry and dominance.

Productive (native) lexicon

Depicting (aka. classifier) and pointing signs that don’t have a fixed form. They are productive in the sense that meaningful parts can be re-combined for specific meanings in context

Non-native lexicon

Signs that originate outside the native sign language – fingerspelling loans and signs loaned from other sign languages

Lexicalised

Signs that have become conventional or established as a ‘word’. E.g., a productive classifier or a fingerspelling may become lexicalised through regular use

Completely specific core

Signs in which all parameters are fixed or ‘specified’ – usually monomorphemic signs. Any change to sign parameters (HOLM) will change the meaning

Incompletely specified core lexicon

Signs in which only some of the parameters are fixed or ‘specified’ – forming the base or root morpheme. These signs usually contain more than one morpheme. Certain parameters may be altered, such as movement in agreement/spatial verbs, or location/number handshape in pronoun signs

What are the different types of classifiers/depicting signs?

SASS – size and shape specifiers (describe appearance properties)

Entity (aka semantic) – handshape that represent specific classes of objects: person, vehicle, large object, plane

Mass & Quantity – plural entities

Body part - handshapes that represent parts of the body

Handling –represent grasping and using/ manipulating objects with the hands. Instrument classifiers have the same function, but represent shape properties of the object, rather than the hands.

Element – water, light, air, fire

Texture and consistency – eg, sticky, wet, sparkly, smooth

Semantics

The study of meaning in language.

Sense

A commonly understood meaning of a word or sign

Referent/reference

Words or signs are symbols that stand for / refer to actual people, places, things, events and states of affairs in the world around us. These actual things that can be pointed to in the world are a word/sign’s referents.

Extension

All the referents that a word or sign can be applied to – e.g. the extension of ‘tree’ includes pine trees, oaks, bonsai trees… ALSO used to talk about words or signs acquiring new meanings by extending to more referents (e.g. FIREWORKS > NOVEMBER).

Intension

The meaning of a word or sign in terms of what it evokes in our mind, or how we would describe it in a definition. E.g. the intension of ‘tree’ is a plant with a trunk, roots and branches.

Denotation

The ‘literal’ meaning of a word or sign. Also called ‘referential’ or ‘propositional’ meaning because it conveys factual information about referents in the real world

Connotation

Emotional and social meanings associated with a word or sign.

Lexical field

A group of words / signs that relates to a specific area of knowledge, activity, or topic

Polysemy

One word / sign form expresses multiple related meanings.

Homonym

Two words or signs with the same form but unrelated meanings.

Synonym

Two words or signs with different forms but the same or very similar (denotational) meaning

Antonym

Two words or signs with the opposite meaning.

Hypernym

A superordinate (top) category term (e.g. ‘furniture’ is a hypernym for terms like ‘chair’, ‘table’, ‘couch’).

Hyponym

A member of a related set or class of words (e.g. ‘husky’ and ‘poodle’ are hyponyms of ‘dog’).

Metonym

A part-to-whole relationship where a part of a referent is used to denote the entire referent (e.g. ‘nice to see a familiar face’).

Iconicity

When a (linguistic) symbol resembles its referent. Iconic symbols are said to have a motivated form-meaning relationship

Metaphor

In metaphor, a word / sign is used to describe a different referent. By describing something as if it were something else, metaphors suggest that there is a similarity between referents, and the word/or sign is extended to include this new referent