The processing of German Sign Language sentences

Hosemann, Jana Alexandra

Three event-related potential studies on phonological, morpho-syntactic, and semantic aspects

dc.contributor.advisor	Steinbach, Markus Prof. Dr.
dc.contributor.author	Hosemann, Jana Alexandra
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-17T09:51:52Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-17T09:51:52Z
dc.date.issued	2015-07-17
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1735-0000-0022-6057-1
dc.identifier.uri	http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-5182
dc.language.iso	eng	de
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subject.ddc	400	de
dc.subject.ddc	800	de
dc.title	The processing of German Sign Language sentences	de
dc.title.alternative	Three event-related potential studies on phonological, morpho-syntactic, and semantic aspects	de
dc.type	doctoralThesis	de
dc.contributor.referee	Steinbach, Markus Prof. Dr.
dc.date.examination	2015-04-10
dc.description.abstracteng	Sign languages have often been the subject of imaging studies investigating the underlying neural correlates of sign language processing. To the contrary, much less research has been conducted on the time-course of sign language processing. There are only a small number of event-related potential (ERP) studies that investigate semantic or morpho-syntactic anomalies in signed sentences. Due to specific properties of the manual-visual modality, sign languages differ from spoken languages in two respects: On the one hand, they are produced in a three-dimensional signing space, on the other hand, sign languages can use several (manual and nonmanual) articulators simul¬taneously. Thus, sign languages have modality-specific characteristics that have an impact on the way they are processed. This thesis presents three ERP studies on different linguistic aspects processed in German Sign Language (DGS) sentences. Chapter 1 investigates the hypothesis of a forward model perspec¬tive on prediction. In a semantic expectation mismatch design, deaf native signers saw videos with DGS sentences that ended in semantically expected or unexpected signs. Since sign languages entail relatively long transition phases between one sign and the next, we tested whether a prediction error of the upcoming sign is already detectable prior to the actual sign onset. Unexpected signs engendered an N400 previous to the critical sign onset that was thus elicited by properties of the transition phase. Chapter 2 presents a priming study on cross-modal cross-language co-activation. Deaf bimodal bilingual participants saw DGS sentences that contained prime-target pairs in one of two priming conditions. In overt phonological priming, prime and target signs were phonologically minimal pairs, while in covert orthographic priming, German translations of prime and target were orthographic minimal pairs, but there was no overlap between the signs. Target signs with overt phonological or with covert orthographic overlap engendered a reduced negativity in the electrophysiological signal. Thus, deaf bimodal bilinguals co-activate their second language (written) German unconsciously during processing sentences in their native sign language. Chapter 3 presents two ERP studies investigating the morpho-syntactic aspects of agreement in DGS. One study tested DGS sentences with incorrect, i.e. unspecified, agreement verbs, the other study tested DGS sentences with plain verbs that incorrectly inflected for 3rd person agreement. Agreement verbs that ended in an unspecified location engen¬dered two independent ERP effects: a positive deflection on posterior electrodes (220-570 ms relative to trigger nonmanual cues) and an anterior effect on left frontal electrodes (300-600 ms relative to the sign onset). In contrast, incorrect plain verbs resulted in a broadly distributed positive deflection (420-730 ms relative to the mismatch onset). These results contradict previous findings of agreement violation in sign languages and are discussed to reflect a violation of well-formedness or processes of context-updating. The stimulus materials of all four studies were consistently presented in continuously signed sentences presented in non-manipulated videos. This methodological innovation enabled a distinctive perspective on the time-course of sign language processing.	de
dc.contributor.coReferee	Schlesewsky, Matthias Prof. Dr.
dc.contributor.thirdReferee	Mani, Nivedita Prof. Dr.
dc.subject.eng	German Sign Language	de
dc.subject.eng	DGS	de
dc.subject.eng	sign language processing	de
dc.subject.eng	ERP	de
dc.subject.eng	N400	de
dc.subject.eng	transition phase	de
dc.subject.eng	priming effect	de
dc.subject.eng	cross-language co-activation	de
dc.subject.eng	agreement violation	de
dc.identifier.urn	urn:nbn:de:gbv:7-11858/00-1735-0000-0022-6057-1-4
dc.affiliation.institute	Philosophische Fakultät	de
dc.subject.gokfull	Philologien (PPN621711713)	de
dc.identifier.ppn	83023800X

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