Table of Contents

1. Introduction: sign language vs gesture, sign language vs speech; 2. Modality effects; 3. Iconcity; 4. Interfaces; 5. The emergence of phonology; 6. Sign language phonological processing; 7. Sign language acquisition; 8. Sign language phonological variation and change.

Promotional Information

Surveys key findings and ideas in sign language phonology, exploring the crucial areas in phonology to which sign language studies has contributed.

About the Author

Diane Brentari is the Mary K. Werkman Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago. She is author and editor of six books including Shaping Phonology (co-edited with Jackson Lee, 2018), Sign Languages (Cambridge, 2010) and Foreign Vocabulary in Sign Languages: A Cross-linguistic Investigation of Word Formation (2001).

Reviews

'Each chapter can stand alone as a coherent piece of scholarship; overall the book is important not just for sign language phonology but for the notion of phonology - and language - broadly.' E. L. Battistella, Choice