Workshop “Expressing Emotions in Sign Languages (ExEmSiLa)”

8 July 2024

Photo: UHH/IDGS

Perceiving emotions, expressing them in sign languages and exploring them together: This was the aim of the workshop “Expressing Emotions in Sign Languages (ExEmSiLa)”.

It took place on 4-5 July at the University of Hamburg and was organised by Annika Herrmann & Sarah Schwarzenberg (University of Hamburg) and Nina-Kristin Meister, Thomas Finkbeiner & Markus Steinbach (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen). The workshop aimed to bring together research on the expression of emotions in sign languages from different perspectives and disciplines. The study of the expression of emotions in the visual-spatial modality covers not only a wide range of linguistic areas such as parts of speech, facial expressions, demonstrations, iconicity, irony, but also a variety of communicative situations including conversations, monologues, settings with feedback strategies, conflict situations and sign language interpreting. The three keynote speakers Barbara Hager (University of Vienna, Austria), Matt Dye (Rochester Institute of Technology, USA) and Vadim Kimmelman (University of Bergen, Norway) presented exciting insights into various cultural, psychological and linguistic studies of emotions in different sign languages. Ten additional presentations, a small poster session and a discussion round resulted in a diverse and international programme with plenty of room for exchange and networking. The organisers would also like to offer a special thanks to all the student assistants for their active support.

A video by Liona Paulus about the workshop is available at this link.