Deaf sign language users oftentimes claim to be able to recognise straight
away whether their interlocutors are native signers. To date it is unclear, however,
what exactly such judgement calls might be based on. The aim of the research
presented was to explore whether specific articulatory features are being associated with signers that have (allegedly) acquired German Sign Language (Deutsche
Gebärdensprache, DGS) as their first language. The study is based on the analysis of
qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data were generated in ten focus
group settings. Each group was made up of three participants and one facilitator.
Deaf participants’ meta-linguistic claims concerning linguistic features of ‘native
signing’ (i.e. what native signing looks like) were qualitatively analysed using
grounded theory methods. Quantitative data were generated via a language assessment experiment designed around stimulus material extracted from DGS corpus
data. Participants were asked to judge whether or not individual clips extracted
from a DGS corpus had been produced by a native signer. Against the backdrop of
the findings identified in the focus group data, the stimulus material was subsequently linguistically analysed in order toidentify specificlinguistic features that
might account for some clips to be judged as ‘produced by a native signer’ as opposed to others that were claimed to have been ‘articulated by a non-native
signer’. Through juxtaposing meta-linguistic perspectives, the results of a language perception experiment and the linguistic analysis of the stimulus material, the
study brings to the fore specific crystallisation points of linguistic and social
features indexing linguistic authenticity. The findings break new ground in that
they suggest that the face as articulator in general, and micro-prosodic features
expressed in the movement of eyes, eyebrows and mouth in particular, play a
significant role in the perception of others as (non-)native signers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:83417 |
| Date | 07 February 2023 |
| Creators | Jaeger, Hannah, Junghanns, Anita |
| Publisher | De Gruyter |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1433-9889 |
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