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Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesGeneral Linguistics (Department of Linguistics)

Mouthing and fingerspelling in Russian Sign Language: description and implications for cross-modal contact (DFG, 2017-2022)

Project description

This project aims at providing the first detailed corpus-based description of these two phenomena in RSL and showing how they bear on current debates regarding their linguistic status in sign languages. Due to particular aspects of the visual-gestural modality, fingerspelling and mouthing are specific cases of language contact that do not have a direct equivalent in spoken languages. Inasmuch as fingerspelling and mouthing constitute cross-modal language contact phenomena, this study will provide further insights into the interaction of three different modalities (sign, speech and writing) and the grammatical system(s) underlying this interaction.

The project gains insight into how the spoken and written Russian, in the form of mouthing and fingerspelling, combines with and affects RSL. The processes of nativization of fingerspelled words of the Russian manual alphabet into the sign language lexicon will be tested according to the cross-linguistic nativization model. By investigating the co-occurrence and variation of mouthings on the basis of a set of frequently occurring signs in RSL, the project will shed light on the linguistic status of mouthings.

The occurrences of fingerspelling and mouthing are investigated as they are produced by and between native RSL signers in the recently created large RSL Corpus (2012-2015, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Russia) containing more than 100,000 signs in 230 video clips presented by 59 native RSL signers. The findings add significantly to the documentation of RSL, contribute to the debate on the linguistic status of mouthing and fingerspelling in sign language grammar, and discuss how these two phenomena suit the existing phonological and morphological models in the sign language and bimodal bilingualism research.

Project outcome

  • Bauer, Anastasia & Roman Poryadin. (in preparation). Fingerspelling and its role in Russian Sign Language discourse.
  • Bauer, Anastasia & Roman Poryadin. (2023). Russian Sign Language conversations. Data Center for the Humanities, https://doi.org/10.18716/dch/a.00000028
  • Bauer, Anastasia 2023. Schriftsprache und Mundbild:  Ergebnisse einer neuen Korpusstudie. In DAS ZEICHEN 37:120, 81-149.
  • Mohr, Susanne & Anastasia Bauer. 2022. Gesture, sign languages and multimodality. In Svenja Völkel & Nico Nassenstein (Eds.). Approaches to Language and Culture, De Gruyter Mouton, Band 1 der Reihe Anthropological Linguistics [AL], 159-196, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110726626
  • Bauer, Anastasia & Maria Kyuseva. 2022. New insights on mouthings in sign languages: evidence from corpus and elicitation studies of Russian sign language. Frontiers in Psychology 12, Sec. Language Sciences, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.779958 [open access]
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2022. Zum Ursprung der Mundbilder in der Russischen Gebärdensprache: ein komplexes Zusammenspiel von Gebärden-, Laut- und Schriftsprache. Eingeladener Vortrag an der Universität Göttingen, 25.05.2022
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2021. Re-thinking the origin of mouthings: it is a written language contact phenomenon. LingCologne21 Multilingualism, University of Cologne.
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2020. Das Konzept der multimodalen Sprache am Beispiel von der Russischen Gebärdensprache. Bulletin der deutschen Slavistik 26, Berlin: Frank & Timme Verlag, 131-139 [open access]
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2020. Mouthing and fingerspelling: different contact phenomena, similar function? LSA annual meeting, New Orleans, USA.
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2020. Das Konzept der multimodalen Sprache: Zusammenspiel der Modalitäten in der Russischen Gebärdensprache. Vortrag bei der Jahrestagung des Verbands der deutschen Slavistik, 1.-2. October 2020.
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2019. „When words meet signs: A corpus-based study on variation of mouthing in Russian Sign Language“. In: Anastasia Bauer & Bunčić, Daniel (Eds.). Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistik, Specimina philologiae Slavicae 198, 9-35, [open access].
  • Bauer, Anastasia & Roman Poryadin. 2019. The interplay of written and sign language. The first corpus-based analysis of fingerspelling and its functions in Russian Sign Language (RSL). LingCologne19: Multimodality, University of Cologne, 6-7 June, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29857.28005
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2019. Seeing stress: temporal reduction in Russian sign language mouthings. TISLR 13, University Hamburg, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18239.53924
  • Bauer, Anastasia. 2018. Артикуляция в русском жестовом языке. In: Kempgen, Sebastian / Monika Wingender / Ludger Udolph (Hrsg.):  Deutsche Beiträge zum 16. Internationalen Slavistenkongress, Belgrad 2018. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, Die Welt der Slaven 63, 36-46, [open access].
  • Bauer, Anastasia, Burkova, Svetlana & Vadim Kimmelman. 2018. Non-manual markers in Russian Sign Language: three case studies. SIGN 9 Conference, Warsaw, Polen.
  • Bauer, Anastasia 2018. Language contact between Russian and Russian sign language. XVI Slavistenkongress Belgrad, 20.-27. August.