A corpus study of mouthing and fingerspelling in Russian Sign Language: description and implications for cross-modal contact

• Applicant: Dr. Anastasia Bauer
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 391074016

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

This project provided the first detailed corpus-based description of two phenomena in Russian Sign Language (henceforth: RSL): mouthings and fingerspellings. Due to particular aspects of the visual-gestural modality, fingerspelling and mouthing are specific cases of language contact that do not have a direct equivalent in spoken languages. Fingerspelling and mouthing constitute thus cross-modal language contact phenomena and their analysis provides further insights into the interaction of three different modalities (sign, speech and writing). No prior studies on the use of fingerspelling and mouthings in RSL have been carried out and there was no information available on how Russian orthography and spoken Russian impacts the Russian Sign Language. This project examined various aspects of mouthing and fingerspelling as these are used by native RSL signers in the RSL corpus. Our results contribute new insights into the form, speading, use, functions and/or origin of these phenomena. Based on data from the online RSL Corpus we first identified, annotated and then explored the distribution, forms, functions and usage of mouthings and fingerspelling in RSL. Our main findings with regard to mouthings show that sign languages exhibit more extensive variation in the use of mouthings than has previously been assumed. We – thus far uniquely – describe mouthings also as a written-language-based contact phenomenon based on our corpus analysis. With regard to fingerspelling, we show that fingerspelling in RSL can be utilized for pragmatic, stylistic and discourse purposes aside from the more generally cited use of cross-modal lexical borrowing (e.g. personal names, technical terms, gaps in the lexicon). Our corpus analysis of fingerspelled items in RSL Corpus has also revealed new typologically interesting features of fingerspelling which have not been previously reported in the literature (i.e. the occurrence of inflected fingerspelling). Our findings have important implications for sign language teaching and provide a better understanding of the nature of such contact-induced features in sign languages in general and reveal a complex interplay of the modalities of signed, spoken and written languages.

Publications

• Language contact between Russian and Russian sign language. XVI Slavistenkongress Belgrad, 20.-27. August.
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Non-manual markers in Russian Sign Language: three case studies. SIGN 9 Conference, Warsaw, Polen.
  Bauer, Anastasia; Burkova, Svetlana & Vadim Kimmelman
  
• Артикуляция слов в русском жестовом языке (РЖЯ). Deutsche Beiträge zum 16. Internationalen Slavistenkongress Belgrad 2018, 35-44. Harrassowitz Verlag.
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Seeing stress: temporal reduction in Russian sign language mouthings. TISLR 13, University Hamburg
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• The interplay of written and sign language. The first corpus-based analysis of fingerspelling and its functions in Russian Sign Language (RSL). LingCologne19: Multimodality, University of Cologne, 6-7 June
  Bauer, Anastasia & Roman Poryadin
  
• „When words meet signs: A corpus-based study on variation of mouthing in Russian Sign Language“. In: Anastasia Bauer & Bunčić, Daniel (Eds.). Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistik, Specimina philologiae Slavicae 198, 9-35,
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Das Konzept der multimodalen Sprache am Beispiel von der Russischen Gebärdensprache. Bulletin der deutschen Slavistik 26, Berlin: Frank & Timme Verlag, 131-139
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Das Konzept der multimodalen Sprache: Zusammenspiel der Modalitäten in der Russischen Gebärdensprache. Vortrag bei der Jahrestagung des Verbands der deutschen Slavistik, 1.-2. October 2020.
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Mouthing and fingerspelling: different contact phenomena, similar function? LSA annual meeting, New Orleans, USA.
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Re-thinking the origin of mouthings: it is a written language contact phenomenon. LingCologne21 Multilingualism, University of Cologne.
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Gesture, sign languages and multimodality. Approaches to Language and Culture, 159–196.
  Mohr, Susanne & Bauer, Anastasia
  
• New Insights Into Mouthings: Evidence From a Corpus-Based Study of Russian Sign Language. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.
  Bauer, Anastasia & Kyuseva, Masha
  
• Zum Ursprung der Mundbilder in der Russischen Gebärdensprache: ein komplexes Zusammenspiel von Gebärden-, Laut- und Schriftsprache. Eingeladener Vortrag an der Universität Göttingen, 25.05.2022
  Bauer, Anastasia
  
• Metalinguistic awareness of mouthings in avatar signing ASL and DGS. To be submitted to TISLR 15 conference in December 2023.
  Bisnath, Felicia & Anastasia Bauer
  
• Russian Sign Language conversations. Data Center for the Humanities
  Bauer, Anastasia & Roman Poryadin
  
• Schriftsprache und Mundbild: Ergebnisse einer neuen Korpusstudie. In DAS ZEICHEN 37:120, 81-149.
  Bauer, Anastasia