Sign Language

Question 1

What is sign phonology (patterns of sounds in a language) and what does it look like?

Answer 1

Signs have a sub- lexical level (phonology) made up of 3 major phonological parameters
1. Handshape
2. Movement
3.Location

Question 2

What are 3 ways in which sign language is a real language

Answer 2

• Slip of the hand
• Tip of the finger
• Language has syntax

Question 3

Describe the slip of the hand state

Answer 3

Phonological units can be transposed, anticipated and perservated

Signs are not produced as holistic gestures

Question 4

Describe the tip of the finger state

Answer 4

Having the semantic memory of the word but not knowing the phonological form (word) for it

Provides evidence that signers also have independent access to meaning and form

Question 5

What is a study for the tip of the finger state

Answer 5

Robin Thompson and colleagues studied 33 deaf signers and asked them to name famous faces

Participants often recalled partial information, like the first letter but couldn’t fully spell or sign words.

This suggests that meaning and form are separately stored in the mind

Question 6

What is syntax?

Answer 6

the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. Acknowledging their are levels to language e.g. he eat to he eats

Question 7

How does sign language have syntax?

Answer 7

Syntactic space:
No locative function. Used to refer

Topographic space:
Show real world locations or spatial relationship

Question 8

What 3 effects does sign language have on cognition

Answer 8

motion processing
Face processing
Mental imagery

Question 9

How does sign language impact cognition in terms of motion processing?

Answer 9

Motion detection in the periphery

When signing, signers look at each others faces rather than tracking hands

Deafness enhances ability to detect movement in the periphery of vision

Question 10

How does sign language impact cognition in terms of Face processing?

Answer 10

Studies using Benton’s face task found
- Deaf adults and children who are fluent signers perform better than non- signers of face discrimination

Question 11

How does sign language impact cognition in terms of mental imagery?

Answer 11

EEG experiment in 2020 on mental rotation tasks revealed sign language comprehension enhances mental rotation abilities,

Question 12

What can sign languages tell us about all languages?

Answer 12

Aspects of language processing that are universal to all human languages

Aspects of processing that are affected by the characteristics of audition vs vision