German Sign Language and
Communication of the Deaf
Photo: UHH/Denstorf
20 June 2022
Photo: IDGS
On June 6th, the third international guest lecture of this summer semester took place at the IDGS. For the first time this semester we met in person to see Martin Janečka from Charles University in Prague report on his research on the use of gestures in aphasia patients.
People with aphasia have suffered damage in a brain region responsible for speech, for example, as a result of a stroke. This leads to problems in the production and comprehension of language. The specific topic of the lecture was the question whether and to what extent aphasia patients can compensate their language deficits with the help of gestures. Prof. Janečka was able to show that Czech speakers with aphasia use more gestures than neurotypical Czech speakers. In addition, they mostly use iconic gestures.
Prof. Janečka is a visiting scholar at the IDGS this June and, among other things, is interested in the interface between gestures and sign language. Therefore, in the second part of his talk, he laid out his ideas about the grammaticalization of gestures in sign languages and discussed them with researchers at IDGS.