German Sign Language and
Communication of the Deaf
Photo: UHH/Denstorf
2 March 2024
Photo: UHH/IDGS
The IDGS was well represented in WG5 on “Clause-type marking in the visual modality” at the annual conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) 2024 in Bochum. The workshop was dedicated to a wide range of topics from various disciplines such as sign language linguistics, gesture research and other forms of visual communication, for example research on emojis in written languages. We learned a lot of new things there, including about new research methods as a result of digitalization.
We from the IDGS were part of the organizing team as well as part of the interpreting team and contributed two presentations. Cornelia Loos gave a joint presentation with Sophie Repp (University of Cologne) on "Multimodal strategies for affirmations and rejections: evidence from co-speech gesture in German". Alexander Eisenzimmer, Annika Herrmann and Simon Kollien, together with Thomas Finkbeiner and Nina-Kristin Meister (both University of Göttingen), presented the results of their corpus-based study entitled "SUDDENLY4 and clause types in German Sign Language: a corpus-based case study of a multifunctional sign".
The conference took place in beautiful weather and, as the date of the conference coincided with a public transport strike, we were somewhat affected by being forced to stay on-site throughout the day. Nevertheless, we fully enjoyed the event. One evening, a vegan buffet was offered for all conference participants at the conference venue, so the feeling of being "stuck" due to the strike was quickly forgotten and the many good conversations will remain a positive memory for us. It was great to be there and to exchange ideas, mainly in a mix of different sign languages and IS, with the many researchers from Germany and abroad, including from the Netherlands, Brazil, Norway and Italy. Thank you to everyone for this fruitful exchange!
Wir vom IDGS waren Teil der Organisationsteams sowie Teil des Dolmetschteams und haben zwei Präsentationen gehalten. Cornelia Loos referierte gemeinsam mit Sophie Repp (Universität Köln) zum Thema “Multimodal strategies for affirmations and rejections: evidence from co-speech gesture in German”. Alexander Eisenzimmer, Annika Herrmann und Simon Kollien haben mit Thomas Finkbeiner und Nina-Kristin Meister (beide Universität Göttingen) die Ergebnisse ihrer korpusbasierten Studie vorgestellt mit dem Titel “SUDDENLY4 and clause types in German Sign Language: a corpus-based case study of a multifunctional sign”.