Form-based corpus analysis of signed languages

In this presentation, I’ll discuss some aspects of doing phonetics and phonology research on signed languages (primarily American Sign Language) using corpora. I’ll focus on two main issues: (1) the development of a novel phonetic measurement of the amount of “visible amplitude” in signs, and (2) the development of a software tool, SLP-AA, for facilitating the phonetic transcription of signed languages. I’ll show preliminary results for each one, looking first at hyperarticulation in phonologically dense neighbourhoods and then at using software to investigate claims about phonological markedness constraints.

Kathleen Currie Hall is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses  on answering questions in theoretical phonology, using techniques from a wide variety of areas, including experimental phonetics, psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics, and information theory.