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Hand biomechanics & sign

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  • Hand biomechanics & sign

    Thanks to the many people who have responded to my query about hand
    biomechanics -- I never expected such a great response! It'll give me
    much to work on.

    I probably should have given a little more background. Actually, I
    did my Ph.D. thesis on the kinematics/dynamics of fingerspelling (the
    manual alphabet), using 3-D motion analysis (WATSMART). That work will
    be published by John Benjamins in Amsterdam in May or June 1992 as
    "The Phonetics of Fingerspelling."

    My interest in knowing more about hand biomechanics stems from a
    frustration with approaches to signed language linguistics that are
    based on abstracting away from the channel of transmission -- a
    strategy which is of course derived from the practice of spoken
    language linguistics and phonology.

    For example, Herman suggested I contact Bellugi and her colleagues
    at Salk. I know the folks there and their work on ASL quite well.
    But I'm not convinced that their framework is compatible with what
    I am looking for.

    In a nutshell, I would come from a more "cognitive linguistic"
    framework that sees linguistic, cognitive, and motor functioning as
    intertwined. Salk favors a more formalist approach in which linguistic
    and cognitive processes are "modular" -- autonomous -- and language is
    amodal: "both speaking and signing reflect the same underlying
    principles ... [that] do not originate in the constraints of a
    particular transmission system"; "... language, independent of its
    transmission mechanisms, emerges in a ... linguistically driven manner"
    [this is from the book What the Hands Reveal About the Brain by
    Poizner, Klima, & Bellugi, and also a review of that book by Doreen
    Kimura in the journal Language & Speech 31(4), 1988].

    As Kimura says in her review: "As B.F. Skinner noted, natural
    selection must operate on overt behavior, not on mental events or
    hypothesized psychological constructs. Linguists perhaps need this
    reminder more than most."

    That, to me, is a reminder that signed language linguists need to know
    much more than we do about biomechanics and the actual "stuff" of
    which signs are made.
    --
    Sherman
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