R. Pfau – Sign Language (2012)

Автор: R. Pfau
Название книги: Sign Language (2012)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Язык жестов
Страницы: 1141
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Sign language linguists show here that all questions relevant to the linguistic investigation of spoken languages can be asked about sign languages. Conversely, questions that sign language linguists consider – even if spoken language researchers have not asked them yet – should also be asked of spoken languages. The HSK handbook Sign Language aims to provide a concise and comprehensive overview of the state of the art in sign language linguistics. It includes 44 chapters, written by leading researchers in the field, that address issues in language typology, sign language grammar, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language documentation and transcription. Crucially, all topics are presented in a way that makes them accessible to linguists who are not familiar with sign language linguistics.

Five long years ago, we met to plan what looked like an impossibly ambitious project
this Handbook. Since then, we have met in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt;
we have exchanged hundreds of e-mails; we have read and commented on dozens of
chapters and we have found the time to write our own. The work on this Handbook
has been challenging at times but it has also been inspiring and rewarding. We have
learned a lot.
Obviously, a project of this size would have been impossible without the help and
encouragement of others. We are therefore grateful to the people and organizations
that supported our work on this Handbook. First of all, we wish to express our gratitude
to the section editors, who assisted us in providing feedback to authors and in
getting the chapters into shape: Onno Crasborn (section I), Josep Quer (section III),
Ronnie Wilbur (section IV), Trude Schermer (section VII), Adam Schembri (section
VIII), and Myriam Vermeerbergen (section IX).
As for the content and final shape of the chapters, we are indebted to all the publishers
who granted us permission to reproduce figures, to Nancy Campbell, our meticulous,
reliable, and highly efficient editorial assistant, and to Sina Schade and Anna-
Christina Boell, who assisted us in the final check of consistency and formatting issues
as well as in putting together the index a truly cumbersome task.
It was a true pleasure to cooperate with the professional and supportive people at
Mouton de Gruyter. We are indebted to Anke Beck for sharing our enthusiasm for
the project and for supporting us in getting the ball rolling. We are very grateful to
Barbara Karlson for guiding and encouraging us throughout the process. Her optimism
helped us to keep up our spirits whenever we felt that things were not going as
smoothly as we hoped. After talking to her, things always looked much brighter. Finally,
we thank Wolfgang Konwitschny for his assistance during the production phase.
Bencie Woll’s work on the handbook has been supported by the Economic and
Social Research Council of Great Britain (Grants RES-620-28-6001 and 6002), Deafness,
Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL). Roland Pfau’s editorial work
was facilitated thanks to a fellowship financed by the German Science Foundation
(DFG) in the framework of the Lichtenberg-Kolleg at the Georg-August-University,
Göttingen.
Last but definitely not least, we thank all the authors who contributed to the handbook
for joining us in this adventure.