Project Participants
Prof. Dr. Annika Herrmann
(Principal Investigator)
University of Hamburg
annika.herrmann@uni-hamburg.de
Annika Herrmann is a professor for Sign Languages and Sign Language Interpreting at the Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf (IDGS) at Universität Hamburg. Her research interests are theoretical and empirical sign language research, as well as experimental psycholinguistics. She received her PhD from University of Frankfurt am Main in 2010. After receiving her PhD, she was the Director of the Experimental Sign Language Lab at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, has worked as a substitute professor for linguistics at the University of Cologne, and as a research assistant in an EEG-project at the University of Mainz. Annika Herrmann is co-director of the DGS-Korpus project and also co-editor of the series ‘Sign Languages and Deaf Communities’.
Selected publications
- Herrmann, A. & M. Steinbach. 2019. Expressive Gesten – expressive Bedeutungen. Expressivität in gebärdensprachlichen Erzählungen. In d’Avis, F. & R. Finkbeiner (eds.), Expressivität im Deutschen. Berlin: de Gruyter, 313–337.
- Herrmann, A. & N.-K. Pendzich. 2018. Between narrator and protagonist in fables of German Sign Language. In Hübl, A. & M. Steinbach (eds.), Linguistic Foundations of Narration in Spoken and Sign Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 275–308.
- Herrmann, A. & N.-K. Pendzich. 2014. Nonmanual gestures in sign languages. In Müller, C., A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. H. Ladewig, D. McNeill & J. Bressem (eds.), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2147–2160.
- Quer, J., R. Pfau & A. Herrmann. 2021. The Routledge Handbook of theoretical and experimental sign language research. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
- Wienholz, A., D. Nuhbalaoglu, M. Steinbach, A. Herrmann & N. Mani. 2021. Phonological priming in German Sign Language: An eye tracking study using the visual world paradigm. Sign Language & Linguistics 24(1). 4– 35.
Prof. Dr. Natalia Filatkina
(Principal Investigator)
University of Hamburg
natalia.filatkina@uni-hamburg.de
Natalia Filatkina is a professor for German linguistics at Universität Hamburg with a focus on digital historical linguistics. Her research focuses on historic linguistics of German, language change, and multilingualism, amongst others. She received her PhD from Otto Friedrich Universität Bamberg in 2003. After being a scientific assistant (C1) at the Universität Trier, she was Director of the junior researcher group “Historische Formelhafte Sprache und Traditionen des Formulierens (HiFoS)” at the Universität Trier. Since then she has been a deputy professor at the Heinrich Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, academy professor at the Universität Trier and at the same time at the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz. She obtained her habilitation at the Universität Trier. Since 2021, she is president of the Europhras-Gesellschaft.
Selected publications
- Filatkina, N. 2018. Historische formelhafte Sprache. Theoretische Grundlagen und Methoden ihrer Erforschung [Habilitationsschrift]. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
- Filatkina, N., C. Moulin, I. Gurevych & R. Eckart de Castilho. 2015. Analyzing Formulaic Patterns in Historical Corpora. In Gippert, J. & R. Gehrke (eds.), Historical Corpora: Challenges and perspectives. Tübingen: Narr, 51–63.
- Filatkina, N. 2014. Constructionalization, Konstruktionswandel und figurative Sprache (sprach)historisch betrachtet. In Dalmas, M. & E. Piirainen (eds.), Figurative Sprache – Figurative Language – Langage figuré. Festgabe für Dmitrij O. Dobrovol’skij. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 41–57.
- Filatkina, N. 2010. Phraseologie der germanischen Sprachen kontrastiv: Geschichte, Ergebnisse und Perspektiven. In Dammel, A., S. Kürschner & D. Nübling (eds.), Kontrastive Germanische Linguistik. Teilband 1 [Germanistische Linguistik, 206–209]. Hildesheim: Olms Weidmann, 275–309.
- Filatkina, N. 2005. Multi-methodologische Korpuserstellung als empirische Basis für phraseologische und phraseographische Untersuchungen. Am Beispiel des Lëtzebuergeschen. In Eckhard, E., J. E. Schmidt & D. Stellmacher (eds.), Moderne Dialektologie – Neue Dialektologie. Akten des 1. Kongresses der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Dialektologie des Deutschen (IGDD) am Forschungsinstitut für deutsche Sprache „Deutscher Sprachatlas“ der Philipps-Universität Marburg vom 5.-8. März 2003 [Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik – Beihefte, vol. 130]. München: Franz Steiner, 555–572.
Sarah Schwarzenberg
(PhD Candidate)
University of Hamburg
sarah.schwarzenberg@uni-hamburg.de
Sarah Schwarzenberg is a scientific researcher at the Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf (IDGS), Universität Hamburg. Her research interests are multimodality and sign language acquisition (both L1 and L2). In her master’s thesis at Universität Hamburg, she investigated the use of finger counting and number signs and their modality-specific features. In 2021, she started her doctoral thesis on metaphors in German Sign Language (L1) and written German (L2), focusing on the identification of metaphors with a multi-methodological approach, using corpus data and experimental methods.
Selected publications
- Schwarzenberg, S. 2022. A first approach to identifying metaphors of German Sign Language in the domain of cognition. Video presented at TISLR14, 27.-30.09.2022, Osaka, Japan.
- Bauer, S. 2022. Know your terminology: On the relevance of definitions. Presentation at STaPs19, 25.- 26.03.22, München, Mainz, Köln.
- Bauer, S. 2022. Looking at place of articulation as a first approach to identifying metaphors of German Sign Language in the domain of ‘cognition’. Presentation at the DGfS44, 23.-25.02.2022, University of Tübingen.
Project Description
This project investigates iconic metaphors in German Sign Language (DGS) from a linguistic perspective to disentangle the gesture-sign interface with regard to figurative language. Previous assumptions of research on metaphors in different signed languages suggest a double mapping, i.e., both a metaphorical and an iconic mapping. The metaphorical mapping refers to the understanding of one concept (target domain) by using elements of another non-related concept (source domain) without the associated literal meaning. This link between concepts is based on similarity or analogy and a unidirectional relation. Iconic mapping is realized by either the form of the sign or the iconic place of articulation (PoA). Following these assumptions, this research investigates metaphorical signs in an established corpus of DGS from the DGS-Korpus project by identifying the iconic PoA, analyzing contextual uses and frequency relations, and combining these results with experimental processing studies. Due to double mapping, recognizing metaphors in signed languages differs from the identification of metaphors in spoken languages. The iconic feature seems to be unique to the visual-gestural modality as indicated by studies on metaphorical gestures as well. The iconic properties of metaphorical signs also raise interesting questions regarding the gesture-sign interface as it is not yet clear where on the gesture-sign-continuum they can be positioned. Thus, this project innovatively addresses metaphors in DGS, specifically in the domains of cognition and perception, from a multi-methodological point of view and will investigate i) how iconic metaphorical signs can be detected in a sign language corpus and how they are structurally composed, i.e., to what extent natural data from corpus narration and interaction tasks shed light on the gesture-sign distinction, ii) whether there is a difference in processing signs with a literal or metaphorical meaning or gestures (EEG experiment), and iii) how different types of metaphors in written German are processed by DGS native signers and whether iconic metaphors in the L1 (DGS) influence processing of metaphors in the L2 (written German)(eye tracking experiment). Beyond new insights at the gesture-sign interface with regard to figurative language, this project will also have an impact on debates about linguistic diversity and literacy, and the field of language teaching and education.