Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
48 results found in linguistics.
- ASL Grammar (American Sign Language Grammar)
- The linguistic rules governing the structure and use of American Sign Language, which differs fundamentally from English grammar. ASL has its own syntax, morphology, and phonology, with word order, sp…
- ASL Linguistic Markers (Non-Manual Markers, Non-Manual Signals, ASL Facial Grammar)
- Facial expressions, head movements, and body postures that serve grammatical and semantic functions in American Sign Language and other sign languages, distinct from emotional facial expressions. Comm…
- American Sign Language (ASL)
- A complete, natural language with its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, expressed through hand shapes, facial expressions, and body movements, used primarily by Deaf communities in the United State…
- Back-translation (Reverse translation)
- A validation technique in cross-linguistic instrument translation where an independently translated version (e.g., ASL video) is translated back into the source language (e.g., English) by someone who…
- Bimodal Bilingualism (Bimodal-Bilingual)
- The ability to use two languages that exist in different modalities — typically a signed language (visual-gestural modality) and a spoken/written language (auditory-vocal modality). Unlike unimodal bi…
- Black ASL (Black American Sign Language, BASL)
- A distinct dialect of American Sign Language that developed within the Black Deaf community, shaped by the history of racial segregation in Deaf education in the United States. Black ASL has its own l…
- Citation Form (Dictionary Form, Isolated Form)
- The standard, isolated way a sign is produced when demonstrated independently, as typically shown in sign language dictionaries. In natural continuous signing, signs often appear differently from thei…
- Classifier (Classifier Predicate, Depicting Sign)
- A type of sign language construction in which handshapes represent categories of objects or entities and are combined with movement and location to convey spatial information about position, movement,…
- Coarticulation
- A linguistic phenomenon in sign language where the production of one sign influences the physical form of adjacent signs in continuous signing. For example, the ending hand position or handshape of on…
- Compound Sign (Compound Word)
- A sign formed by combining two or more existing signs into a single, unified sign with its own distinct meaning. In American Sign Language and other sign languages, compound signs undergo phonological…
- Continuous Sign Language (Connected Sign Language, Continuous Signing)
- Sign language produced in natural, flowing sentences and discourse, as opposed to isolated individual signs. Continuous sign language includes phenomena like co-articulation (where one sign influences…
- Cross-language Research (Cross-linguistic Research, Multilingual Research)
- Research conducted across different languages, requiring translation and interpretation to bridge communication between researchers and participants who do not share a common language. In accessibilit…
- Differential Signing Rate (Dynamic Signing Speed, Signing Rate Variation)
- The degree to which the speed of individual signs varies throughout a sign language passage, reflecting natural speed-ups and slow-downs driven by linguistic context. In human signing, certain words m…
- German Sign Language (DGS, Deutsche Gebärdensprache)
- The sign language used by the deaf community in Germany, recognised as an independent natural language with its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary distinct from spoken German. Like other sign languag…
- Gricean maxims (Conversational maxims, Cooperative principle)
- A set of principles proposed by philosopher Paul Grice that describe the implicit rules governing cooperative conversation: quantity (be informative but not over-informative), quality (be truthful), r…
- HamNoSys (Hamburg Notation System)
- A phonetic transcription system designed to represent the form of signs in any sign language. Developed at the University of Hamburg, HamNoSys captures detailed information about hand movements, hands…
- Handshape (Hand Configuration, Handform)
- One of the five fundamental parameters of sign language phonology, referring to the specific configuration or shape of the hand(s) when producing a sign. Handshapes are a primary way signs are disting…
- Indirect speech act (Indirect request)
- A linguistic utterance whose intended meaning differs from its literal meaning, commonly used in neurotypical communication for politeness or social convention. For example, "Can you pass the salt?" i…
- Inflecting Verb (Spatial Verb, Agreement Verb, Directional Verb)
- A category of sign language verbs that change their movement path, direction, or orientation based on the spatial locations associated with their subject and object. In American Sign Language, verbs l…
- Lexical NMS (Lexical Non-Manual Sign)
- Non-manual signs that are an integral part of a specific sign's production, required to distinguish it from other signs that share the same manual component. For example, the ASL sign for "NOT YET" in…