PALM UP in Gesture and Sign Symposium: Theoretical, Typological and Methodological Perspectives for Future Research

On the 9^th and 10^th of October PALM UP symposium took place at the Lund University, Sweden. Organized by joint efforts of Sandra Debreslioska (Lund University), Anastasia Bauer, Anna Kuder (GeSi ViCom Project, University of Cologne) and Pamela Perniss (The Gesture-to-Sign Trajectory ViCom Project, University of Cologne), and funded Elisabeth Rausing Memorial Fund (Lund University) and ViCom (DFG SPP).

When? 9-10 October 2024

Where? Lund University, Sweden

Programm

Wednesday, 9 October

Thursday, 10 October

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GOALS

The main goal was to address certain theoretical, typological, and methodological concerns that emerged from our previous collaborative works of the use of PALM UP, and formulate the future research directions.

PALM UP is a phenomenon that is both attested for and pervasive in languages belonging to both modalities. Hence, the workshop was specifically designed to bring together sign language and gesture researchers working on the topic to facilitate mutual exchange, spark new interests and start meaningful conversations that will hopefully lead to new collaborations and advances in the topic.

We defined three main areas we wanted to tackle, each guided by a set of specific research questions, encompassing the presented talks and subsequent discussions:

Theory: What are the primary functions fulfilled cross-linguistically and cross-modally by various forms of PALM UP? Pragmatic, prosodic, syntactic? Do different variants of PALM UP constitute a variety of gesture families?

Typology: Does language modality have an effect on the functions of PALM UP? What constitutes a demarcation line between palm-up lexical signs and palm-up gestures in signed discourse?

Methodology: How to most accurately detect and annotate PALM UP(s) (i.e., what can and cannot be considered a palm-up open hand gesture)?

PRESENTATIONS

The floor was given to invited speakers who delivered the talks about their current work on the use of PALM UP. At the same time, an open call for poster presentations was issued, and was aimed mainly at advanced students and early career researchers to provide them with a stage to present their work in an environment that would support knowledge exchange between two generations of palm up researchers.

In the end we welcomed 9 on-stage presentations, 6 poster presentations and one extra presentation introducing the Lund University Humanities Lab. The meeting was followed by a discussion in which all participants took part.

The scientific part of the symposium was balanced out by social program which included social lunch on both days and dinner on Wednesday. This provided a base for expanding individual networks of all participants and will hopefully lead to new fruitful collaborations.