Click HERE for the presentation video with sign interpretation.
In this first lecture. I will present in detail the findings of some older work on the realisation of ‘focus’, emphasised linguistic information in a sentence. We found for Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) that information can be emphasised in a myriad of ways, using both manual and non-manual cues. Some of the facial, head, and body signals are produced during a (series of) sign(s), while others are more ‘punctual’, following a focused constituent. There is a role for the mouth, eye brows, eyes, head, and torso. I compare these findings to more recent research on other sign languages. Together, these studies enrich our understanding of the complexity of sign language prosody and help us understand why sign languages come across as so ‘expressive’ to non-signers.