Jérémie Segouat & Annelies Braffort:
Toward modeling sign language coarticulation
I promised to refer Mister Segouat to early work on sign languages that also treat the rich aspects of the signed languages:
1. The historical overview in the first chapters of Kendon (2004), Gesture, visible action as utterance
2. Wilhelm Wundt, The Language of Gestures (e.g. 1973 English edition)
3. Tylor, Edward B. (1870) Researches into the Early History of Mankind. London, John Murray.
The book by Adam Kendon is also an excellent source to read up on the relationships between sign language and other kinds of gestures. It even has a specific chapter on it. Alternatively you could check Kendon’s recent paper on this subject in Gesture 8(3).
The French are, by the way, present in some numbers. Their work on sign language synthesis is quite interesting, and Segouat’s work on coarticulation is also quite interesting. Their treatment of other gestures is, however, in my view, not in line with most current insights in the general nature of gesture. But perhaps my treatment of sign language is, in their view, not in line with most current insights either 🙂
Jeremie Segouat
Thanks for the reference.
I already know Kendon’s book, but I was not aware of the work of Wilhelm Wundt and Tylor, Edward B.
Just a quick note to say that I don’t deal with other gestures than sign languages ones 🙂
The point I wanted to make when we were discussing about gestures is that, in my point of view, gestures in sign languages rely on language basis (that means they follow syntactic and grammar rules) and it is not the case for gestures used in co-verbal situation. That means that in my opinion you cannot use the same principles used in co-verbal studies to apply them to study sign languages.
Jeroen
Jeremie, you are starting from all sorts of assumptions about the nature of sign language signs and the nature of ‘other gestures’ to say things about them. But I think that reading Kendon might help you to improve your assumptions.