Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:48:42.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A theory-driven model of handshape similarity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2017

Jonathan Keane ,
Zed Sevcikova Sehyr ,
Karen Emmorey  and
Diane Brentari
Jonathan Keane*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Zed Sevcikova Sehyr*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
Karen Emmorey*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
Diane Brentari*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Following the Articulatory Model of Handshape (Keane 2014), which mathematically defines handshapes on the basis of joint angles, we propose two methods for calculating phonetic similarity: a contour difference method, which assesses the amount of change between handshapes within a fingerspelled word, and a positional similarity method, which compares similarity between pairs of letters in the same position across two fingerspelled words. Both methods are validated with psycholinguistic evidence based on similarity ratings by deaf signers. The results indicate that the positional similarity method more reliably predicts native signer intuition judgements about handshape similarity. This new similarity metric fills a gap in the literature (the lack of a theory-driven similarity metric) that has been empty since effectively the beginning of sign-language linguistics.

Type
Articles
Information
Phonology , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , August 2017 , pp. 221 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This work would not have been possible without the contributions of the Deaf signers who participated in our experiments. The manuscript greatly benefited from the feedback of our colleagues Jordan Fenlon, Leah Geer and Jason Riggle, as well as the anonymous reviewers. All mistakes and omissions are our own. This work was also supported in part by a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (NSF BCS 1251807) and a NSF Research Grant (IIS 1409886).

References

REFERENCES

Akamatsu, Carol Tane (1982). The acquisition of fingerspelling in pre-school children. PhD dissertation, University of Rochester.Google Scholar
Akamatsu, Carol Tane (1985). Fingerspelling formulae: a word is more or less the sum of its letters. In Stokoe, William C. & Volterra, Virginia (eds.) SLR ’83: sign language research. Silver Spring, MD: Linstock. 126–132.Google Scholar
Anderson, David & Burnham, Kenneth (2006). AIC myths and misunderstandings. Available (May 2017) at https://sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu/anderson/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2016/11/AIC-Myths-and-Misunderstandings.pdf.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald, Piepenbrock, Richard & van Rijn, Hedderik (1995). The CELEX lexical database. [CD-ROM: Release 2.] Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas (2010). Linear mixed model implementation in lme4. Ms, Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Battison, Robbin (1978). Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok.Google Scholar
Blasdell, Richard & Clymer, William (1978). An empirical study of cipher, phonological and syntactic models of fingerspelling production. American Annals of the Deaf 123. 857–872.Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane (1998). A prosodic model of sign language phonology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane & Padden, Carol A. (2001). Native and foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language: a lexicon with multiple origins. In Brentari, Diane (ed.) Foreign vocabulary in sign languages: a cross-linguistic investigation of word formation. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 87–119.Google Scholar
Burnham, Kenneth P. & Anderson, David R. (2004). Multimodel inference: understanding AIC and BIC in model selection. Sociological Methods and Research 33. 261–304.Google Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Schembri, Adam & Tyrone, Martha E. (2008). One hand or two? Nativisation of fingerspelling in ASL and BANZSL. Sign Language and Linguistics 11. 3–44.Google Scholar
Eccarius, Petra (2002). Finding common ground: a comparison of handshape across multiple sign languages. MA thesis, Purdue University.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew (2013). P values and statistical practice. Epidemiology 24. 69–72.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew & Carlin, John (2014). Beyond power calculations: assessing Type S (sign) and Type M (magnitude) errors. Perspectives on Psychological Science 9. 641–651.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gelman, Andrew & Hill, Jennifer (2007). Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, Hill, Jennifer & Yajima, Masanao (2012). Why we (usually) don't have to worry about multiple comparisons. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 5. 189–211.Google Scholar
Hanson, Vicki L., Liberman, Isabelle Y. & Shankweiler, Donald (1984). Linguistic coding by deaf children in relation to beginning reading success. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 37. 378–393.Google Scholar
Hildebrandt, Ursula & Corina, David (2002). Phonological similarity in American Sign Language. Language and Cognitive Processes 17. 593–612.Google Scholar
van der Hulst, Harry (1995). The composition of handshapes. University of Trondheim Working Papers in Linguistics 23. 1–17.Google Scholar
Johnson, Paul C. D. (2014). Extension of Nakagawa & Schielzeth's R2GLMM to random slopes models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 5. 944–946.Google Scholar
Johnson, Robert E. & Liddell, Scott K. (2010). Toward a phonetic representation of signs: sequentiality and contrast. Sign Language Studies 11. 241–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Robert E. & Liddell, Scott K. (2011a). Toward a phonetic representation of hand configuration: the thumb. Sign Language Studies 12. 316–333.Google Scholar
Johnson, Robert E. & Liddell, Scott K. (2011b). Toward a phonetic representation of hand configuration: the fingers. Sign Language Studies 12. 5–45.Google Scholar
Keane, Jonathan (2014). Towards an articulatory model of handshape: what fingerspelling tells us about the phonetics and phonology of handshape in American Sign Language. PhD thesis, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Keane, Jonathan & Brentari, Diane (2016). Fingerspelling: beyond handshape sequences. In Marschark, Marc & Spencer, Patricia Elizabeth (eds.) The Oxford handbook of Deaf studies in language: research, policy, and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 146–160.Google Scholar
Keane, Jonathan, Brentari, Diane & Riggle, Jason (2013). Dispelling prescriptive rules in ASL fingerspelling: the case of -e-. Poster presented at Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research 11, London.Google Scholar
Lane, Harlan, Boyes-Braem, Penny & Bellugi, Ursula (1976). Preliminaries to a distinctive feature analysis of handshapes in American Sign Language. Cognitive Psychology 8. 263–289.Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. & Johnson, Robert E. (1989). American Sign Language: the phonological base. Sign Language Studies 64. 195–277.Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. & Johnson, Robert E. (2011a). A segmental framework for representing signs phonetically. Sign Language Studies 11. 408–463.Google Scholar
Locke, John L. (1970). Short-term memory encoding strategies of the deaf. Psychonomic Science 18. 233–234.Google Scholar
Mandel, Mark (1981). Phonotactics and morphology in American Sign Language. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Mauk, Claude E. & Tyrone, Martha E. (2012). Location in ASL: insights from phonetic variation. Sign Language and Linguistics 15. 128–146.Google Scholar
Miller, George A. & Nicely, Patricia E. (1955). An analysis of perceptual confusions among some English consonants. JASA 27. 338–352.Google Scholar
Nakagawa, Shinichi & Schielzeth, Holger (2013). A general and simple method for obtaining R2 from generalized linear mixed-effects models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 4. 133–142.Google Scholar
Padden, Carol A. (1998). The ASL lexicon. Sign Language and Linguistics 1. 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team (2016). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.r-project.org.Google Scholar
Richards, John T. & Hanson, Vicki L. (1985). Visual and production similarity of the handshapes of the American manual alphabet. Perception and Psychophysics 38. 311–319.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sandler, Wendy (1989). Phonological representation of the sign: linearity and non-linearity in American Sign Language. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy & Lillo-Martin, Diane (2006). Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, William C., Casterline, Dorothy C. & Croneberg, Carl G. (1965). A dictionary of American Sign Language on linguistic principles. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press.Google Scholar
Stungis, James (1981). Identification and discrimination of handshape in American Sign Language. Perception and Psychophysics 29. 261–276.Google Scholar
Tyrone, Martha E., Nam, Hosung, Saltzman, Elliot, Mathur, Gaurav & Goldstein, Louis (2010). Prosody and movement in American Sign Language: a task-dynamics approach. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. Available (May 2017) at speechprosody2010.illinois.edu/papers/100957.pdf.Google Scholar
Weyer, Stephen A. (1973). Fingerspelling by computer. Stanford: Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Whitworth, Cecily (2011). Features, clusters, and configurations: units of contrast in American Sign Language handshapes. PhD dissertation, Gallaudet University.Google Scholar
Wilcox, Sherman (1992). The phonetics of fingerspelling. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Margaret & Emmorey, Karen (1997). Working memory for sign language: a window into the architecture of the working memory system. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2. 121–130.Google Scholar