ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a broad view of what ‘language’ is and examines aspects of different kinds of communicative actions that can occur either with speech, or without it. First the chapter gives some background on studies of sign languages and gesture, before looking at some of the research methods and tools that these linguistic disciplines share. The chapter outlines some research questions that arise in these fields and then looks at particular methodological considerations for working on sign and gesture, such as elicitation and filming techniques, and the use of annotation tools to work with visual data. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of sign language dictionaries.
