Comparability of signed and spoken languages: Absolute and relative modality effects in cross-modal typology

Ulrike Zeshan; Nick Palfreyman

doi:10.1515/lingty-2020-2059

Article

Comparability of signed and spoken languages: Absolute and relative modality effects in cross-modal typology

Ulrike Zeshan and Nick Palfreyman

Published/Copyright: August 19, 2020

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From the journal Linguistic Typology Volume 24 Issue 3

Abstract

This article sets out a conceptual framework and typology of modality effects in the comparison of signed and spoken languages. This is essential for a theory of cross-modal typology. We distinguish between relative modality effects, where a linguistic structure is markedly more common in one modality than in the other, and absolute modality effects, where a structure does not occur in one of the modalities at all. Using examples from a wide variety of sign languages, we discuss examples at the levels of phonology, morphology (including numerals, negation, and aspect) and semantics. At the phonological level, the issue of iconically motivated sub-lexical components in signs, and parallels with sound symbolism in spoken languages, is particularly pertinent. Sensory perception metaphors serve as an example for semantic comparison across modalities. Advocating an inductive approach to cross-modal comparison, we discuss analytical challenges in defining what is comparable across the signed and spoken modalities, and in carrying out such comparisons in a rigorous and empirically substantiated way.

Keywords: sign languages; cross-modal typology; modality effects; rural sign languages; sensory perception; metaphors; numerals

Corresponding author: Ulrike Zeshan[ʊlˈʁikʰɛ ˈzɛʃʌn], University of Central Lancashire, International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies, School of Humanities, Language and Global Studies, Harrington Building, HA227, Fylde Rd, Preston, PR1 2HE, UK, E-mail: UZeshan@uclan.ac.uk

Funding source: Leverhulme Trust

Award Identifier / Grant number: ECF-2016-795

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the deaf sign language users who have shared information about their sign languages with us. In particular, for the investigation summarised in Section 4, we are grateful to Hasan Dikyuva, Kang-Suk Byun, Qian Sun, Sibaji Panda and Muhammad Isnaini. We received very constructive feedback from several anonymous reviewers, to whom we are indebted and wish to express our gratitude. We would also like to thank Deepu Manavalamamuni, Jagdishkumar Choudhari and Muhammad Isnaini for their help with some of the photographs. In addition, Palfreyman acknowledges the support of the Leverhulme Trust in granting his Early Career Research Fellowship (ECF-2016-795).

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Published Online: 2020-08-19

Published in Print: 2020-10-25

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https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2059

Keywords for this article

sign languages; cross-modal typology; modality effects; rural sign languages; sensory perception; metaphors; numerals