Functions of Head and Body Movements in Austrian Sign Language

Download or read book Functions of Head and Body Movements in Austrian Sign Language written by Andrea Lackner and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on nonmanual elements – or ‘nonmanuals’ – in sign languages has focused on both the possible functions and the occurrence (frequency and form) of these elements in recent years. As a matter of fact, research on nonmanuals is still a quite uncharted territory in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) today, which has also initiated the study given. In order to identify head and body movements in ÖGS, these nonmanuals were determined and analyzed functionally via a new user-oriented methodology. Getting feedback of multiple native signers was a main part of this method. Accordingly, you will find the findings of this study in this volume: various functions such as negation, assertion, interrogativity, conditionality, and many more can be expressed nonmanually. Brand new insights into sign language research are given, as well as astonishing results: even (epistemic) modality can be expressed by particular head and body movements.