[Histling-l] Call for submissions: thematic issue of Diachronica

Thu May 5 21:25:49 EDT 2022

*Call for Submissions: *

*Special Thematic Issue on the Historical Linguistics of Signed Languages*

The past two centuries of research on human language change have produced
great insights into the extent, types, and mechanisms of language change.
Theories and models of change within the field of historical linguistics,
however, overwhelmingly derive solely from languages in the oral/aural
modality. At the same time, for at least the last half century, linguists
working on languages in gestural/visual and/or tactile modalities have made
strides in exploring historical relationships among sign languages
(Woodward 1978, 2000, 2011; McKee and Kennedy 2000; Yu et al. 2018; Abner
et al. 2020; Reagan 2021; Power et al. 2020; Power 2022), Creolization and
sign languages (Fisher 1978, 1996; Meier 1984, Kegl et al. 1999), the
historical sociolinguistics and philology of signed languages (Lucas et al.
2001, McCaskill et al. 2011, Fischer 2015, Battison et al. 1975, Shaw and
Delaporte 2014), the diachrony of specific sign languages (Supalla and
Clark 2015,  Wilkinson 2016, Wilcox and Occhino 2016,), and language
contact, both within and across modalities (Brentari and Padden 2001,
Quinto-Pozos 2007, 2008, Battison 1978). Sign linguistics research has also
proposed compelling generalizations of types of sign changes (Frishberg
1975, Radutzky 1989), and introduced a wealth of new data and insights on
the emergence of new languages in homes, villages and communities (Polich
2005, Zeshan and de Vos 2012, Goldin-Meadow and Mylander 1990, Singleton et
al. 1993, Hou 2016, Senghas and Coppola 2001, Wilcox 2009, Edwards and
Brentari 2021, Sandler et al. 2011, Power 2020). Yet, in spite of the clear
thematic and theoretical relevance of signed languages to the understanding
of human language change, there has been strikingly little dialogue or
cross-pollination between historical linguistics research on spoken
languages and scholarship on the diachrony of signed languages. As a
telling datum, *Diachronica *has not yet published a single research
article dedicated to a sign language over its nearly 40 years. In the
interest of starting to redress this gap and spurring greater consideration
of signed language data in the development of theories of human language
change, we invite submissions for a special thematic issue on the
historical linguistics of signed languages. We invite papers that deal with
change in languages in the gestural/visual (or tactile) modality and which,
consistent with the journal's usual submission guidelines
<https://benjamins.com/catalog/dia/submission>, combine new insights of
theoretical interest with rigorous analysis of data, and have a diachronic
focus, rather than synchronically analyzed data from older languages.
Topics may address a wide range of issues related to language change
including, but not limited to:

- Processes of change in the context of emerging home or village sign
languages

- The historical emergence and development of signed languages that have
been linked to the establishment of schools for the deaf or other
institutions

- Contact between signed languages or between signed and spoken/written
languages

- Theoretical contributions to models of language families, cognacy, and
linguistic relatedness in the context of sign languages

- Effects of language modality on processes of language change: e.g.,
effects of iconicity, effects of aspects of linguistics structure that are
typical of a given language modality, etc.

-  Language change at all linguistic levels within stable sign languages

- Comparative/Historical reconstruction of earlier stages of sign languages

- Sign etymologies

- Presentation of historically-oriented or comparative corpora for sign
languages

Please submit papers online through the Editorial Manager
<https://www.editorialmanager.com/diachronica/default1.aspx> system, with
“thematic issue” as the article type. Articles may be up to 10,000 words,
and shorter articles or discussion notes are accepted. Regular *Diachronica
*submission instructions apply in other respects. For thematic review
article suggestions, please contact the editor before submission. You are
welcome to submit a presubmission inquiry.

Deadline for the thematic issue is May 1, 2023. (However, please note that
submissions on the diachrony of signed languages are welcome at any time.)

Abner, N., Geraci, C., Yu, S., Lettieri, J., Mertz, J., and Salgat, A.
(2020). Getting the upper hand on sign language families. FEAST 3, 17–29.
doi: 10.31009/FEAST.i3.02

Battison, R., Markowicz, H., and Woodward, J. (1975). A good rule of thumb:
Variable phonology in American Sign Language. In R. W. Fasold & R. W. Shuy
Analyzing (Eds.), *Variation in Language: Papers from the Second Colloquium
on New Ways of Analyzing Variation*, 291–302. Washington DC: Georgetown
University Press.

Battison, R. (1978). Lexical Borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver
Spring, MD: Linkstok Press.

Brentari, D., and C. A. Padden. 2001. Native and foreign vocabulary in
American Sign Language: A lexicon with multiple origins. In Foreign
vocabulary in sign languages: A cross-linguistic investigation of word
formation, ed. D. Brentari, 87-119. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Edwards, T., and D. Brentari. 2021. The grammatical incorporation of
demonstratives in an emerging tactile language. *Frontiers in
Communication: Language Sciences*. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.579992

Fischer, S. D. (1978). Sign languages and creoles. In Understanding
Language Through Sign Research, ed P. Siple (New York, NY: Academic Press),
309–331.

Fischer, S. D. (1996). By the numbers: Language-internal evidence for
creolization, in International Review of Sign Linguistics, Vol. 1, eds. W.
H. Edmondson and R. B. Wilbur (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum), 1–22.

Fischer, S. D. (2015). Sign languages in their historical context, in The
Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, eds C. Bowern and B. Evans
(London: Routledge), 442–465.

Frishberg, N. (1975). Arbitrariness and iconicity: Historical change in
American Sign Language. Language 51, 696–719. doi: 10.2307/412894

Goldin-Meadow, S. & Mylander, C. (1990). Beyond the input given: The
child’s role in the acquisition of language. *Language* 66 (2). 323–355.

Kegl, J., Senghas, A., and Coppola, M. (1999). Creation through contact:
Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In M.
DeGraff (Ed.), *Language creation and language change*, 179–238. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.

Lucas, C. Bayley, R., & Valli, C. (2001). *Sociolinguistic variation in
American Sign Language*. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

McCaskill, C. Lucas, C. Hill, J. and Bayley, R. (2011). The Hidden Treasure
of Black ASL: Its History and Structure. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet
University Press.

McKee, D., and Kennedy, G. (2000). Lexical comparison of signs from
American, Australian, British, and New Zealand sign languages, in The Signs
of Language Revisited: An Anthology to Honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward
Klima, eds K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum), 49–76.

Meier, R. P. (1984). Sign as creole. Behav. Brain Sci. 7. 201–202. doi:
10.1017/S0140525X00044289

Polich, L. (2005). The Emergence of the Deaf Community in Nicaragua: With
Sign Language You Can Learn so Much. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University
Press.

Power, J. M. (2020). The origins of Russian-Tajik Sign Language:
Investigating the Historical Sources and Transmission of a Signed Language
in Tajikistan. Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin dissertation.

Power, J. M. (2022). Historical Linguistics of Sign Languages: Progress and
Problems. Front. Psychol. 13:818753. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.818753

Power, J. M., Grimm, G. W., and List, J.-M. (2020). Evolutionary dynamics
in the dispersal of sign languages. Royal Soc. Open Sci. 7, 1–15. doi:
10.1098/rsos.191100

Quinto-Pozos, D. (2008). Sign language contact and interference: ASL and
LSM. Lang. Soc. 37, 161–189. doi: 10.1017/S0047404508080251

Radutzky, E. J. (1989). *La Lingua Italiana dei Segni: Historical change in
the sign language of deaf people in Italy*. New York University
dissertation.

Reagan, T. (2021). Historical linguistics and the case for sign language
families. Sign Lang. Stud. 21, 427–454. doi: 10.1353/sls.2021.0006

Hou, L. (2016). Making Hands: Family Sign Languages in the San Juan
Quiahije Community. Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin dissertation.

Sandler, W., Aronoff, M., Meir, I. and Padden, C. (2011) The gradual
emergence of phonological form in a new language. *Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory, 29*(2),503-543.

Schembri, A., McKee, D., McKee, R., Pivac, S., Johnston, T., and Goswell,
D. (2009). Phonological variation and change in Australian and New Zealand
Sign Languages: The location variable. Lang. Var. Change 21, 193–231. doi:
10.1017/S0954394509990081

Senghas, A., and Coppola, M. (2001). Children creating language: How
Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychol. Sci. 12,
323–328. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00359

Shaw, E., and Delaporte, Y. (2014). A Historical and Etymological
Dictionary of American Sign Language. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University
Press.

Singleton, Jenny L., Jill P. Morford, & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1993. Once is
not enough: Standards of well-formedness in manual communication created
over three different time spans. *Language*69 (4). 683–715.

Supalla, T., and Clark, P. (2015). Sign Language Archaeology: Understanding
the Historical Roots of American Sign Language. Washington, DC: Gallaudet
University Press.

Wilcox, S. (2009). Symbol and Symptom: Routes from Gesture to Signed
Language. *Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics* 7: 89–110.

Wilcox, S. and Occhino, C. (2016). Historical Change in Signed Languages.
Chicago, IL: Oxford Handbooks Online.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935345.013.24

Wilkinson, E. (2016). Finding frequency effects in the usage of NOT
collocations in American Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 19(1):
82-123. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.19.1.03wil

Woodward, J. (1978). Historical bases of American Sign Language. In
Understanding Language Through Sign Language Research, ed P. Siple (New
York, NY: Academic Press), 333–348.

Woodward, J. (2000). Sign languages and sign language families in Thailand
and Vietnam. In The Signs of Language Revisited: An Anthology to Honor
Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, eds. K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum), 25–45.

Woodward, J. (2011). Some observations on research methodology in
lexicostatistical studies of sign languages. In Deaf Around the World: The
Impact of Language, eds. G. Mathur and D. J. Napoli (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), 38–53. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732548.00 3.0002

Yu, S., Geraci, C., and Abner, N. (2018). Sign languages and the online
world of online dictionaries and lexicostatistics. In LREC 2018, ed N.
Calzolari (Miyazaki: European Language Resources Association), 4235–4240.

Zeshan, U. & de Vos, C. (Eds.). (2012). *Sign languages in village
communities: Anthropological and linguistic insights*. Berlin & Nijmegen:
De Gruyter Mouton & Ishara Press.

-- 

Claire Bowern
Professor
Editor: *Diachronica*
Department of Linguistics, Yale University
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