Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Visual Iconicity Across Sign Languages: Large-Scale Automated Video Analysis of Iconic Articulators and Locations
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, Computational Linguistics.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6027-4156
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics. Radboud University, Netherlands.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7549-4648
2018 (English)In: Frontiers in Psychology, E-ISSN 1664-1078, Vol. 9, article id 725Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

We use automatic processing of 120,000 sign videos in 31 different sign languages to show a cross-linguistic pattern for two types of iconic form–meaning relationships in the visual modality. First, we demonstrate that the degree of inherent plurality of concepts, based on individual ratings by non-signers, strongly correlates with the number of hands used in the sign forms encoding the same concepts across sign languages. Second, we show that certain concepts are iconically articulated around specific parts of the body, as predicted by the associational intuitions by non-signers. The implications of our results are both theoretical and methodological. With regard to theoretical implications, we corroborate previous research by demonstrating and quantifying, using a much larger material than previously available, the iconic nature of languages in the visual modality. As for the methodological implications, we show how automatic methods are, in fact, useful for performing large-scale analysis of sign language data, to a high level of accuracy, as indicated by our manual error analysis.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 9, article id 725
Keywords [en]
iconicity, sign language, location, two-handed signs, semantics, lexical plurality, automated video processing, typology
National Category
General Language Studies and Linguistics
Research subject
Linguistics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-156393DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00725ISI: 000432577700002OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-156393DiVA, id: diva2:1206319
Available from: 2018-05-16 Created: 2018-05-16 Last updated: 2022-02-26Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(4668 kB)746 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 4668 kBChecksum SHA-512
8089e9e1d562a7784fce0204970a89db3ecb137fdb25d681eed4d1a3c717168ddb0cdbec1c3a07b5b43bb497b917b4bc4fc2055bc627b12a59e5d2106e57925d
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Östling, RobertBörstell, Carl

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Östling, RobertBörstell, Carl
By organisation
Computational LinguisticsGeneral Linguistics
In the same journal
Frontiers in Psychology
General Language Studies and Linguistics

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 748 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 2365 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf