ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Theoretical and Experimental Sign Language Research bridges the divide between theoretical and experimental approaches to provide an up-to-date survey of key topics in sign language research. With 29 chapters written by leading and emerging scholars from around the world, this Handbook covers the following key areas:

  • On the theoretical side, all crucial aspects of sign language grammar studied within formal frameworks such as Generative Grammar
  • On the experimental side, theoretical accounts are supplemented by experimental evidence gained in psycho- and neurolinguistic studies
  • On the descriptive side, the main phenomena addressed in the reviewed scholarship are summarized in a way that is accessible to readers without previous knowledge of sign languages

Each chapter features an introduction, an overview of existing research, and a critical assessment of hypotheses and findings. The Routledge Handbook of Theoretical and Experimental Sign Language Research is key reading for all advanced students and researchers working at the intersection of sign language research, linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics.

Chapters 5, 18 and 19 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at https://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

chapter 1|32 pages

Sign language phonology

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 2|12 pages

Phonological comprehension

Experimental perspectives

chapter 3|25 pages

Lexical processing in comprehension and production

Experimental perspectives

chapter 4|25 pages

Prosody

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 5|27 pages

Verb agreement

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 6|17 pages

Verb agreement

Experimental perspectives

chapter 7|35 pages

Classifiers

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 8|20 pages

Classifiers

Experimental perspectives

chapter 9|19 pages

Aspect

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 10|19 pages

Determiner phrases

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 11|34 pages

Content interrogatives

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 12|29 pages

Negation

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 13|14 pages

Null arguments and ellipsis

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 14|16 pages

Null arguments

Experimental perspectives

chapter 15|26 pages

Relative clauses

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 16|27 pages

Role shift

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 17|25 pages

Use of sign space

Experimental perspectives

chapter 18|20 pages

Specificity and definiteness

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 19|17 pages

Quantification

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 20|18 pages

Implicatures

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 21|22 pages

Discourse anaphora

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 22|20 pages

Discourse particles

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 23|30 pages

Logical visibility and iconicity in sign language semantics

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 24|36 pages

Non-manual markers

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 25|25 pages

Gesture and sign

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 26|23 pages

Information structure

Theoretical perspectives

chapter 27|22 pages

Bimodal bilingual grammars

Theoretical and experimental perspectives

chapter 28|28 pages

Language emergence

Theoretical and empirical perspectives

chapter 29|21 pages

Working memory in signers

Experimental perspectives