ShowTell – Showing and telling in Finnish Sign Language

The ShowTell project investigates how showing meaning is connected to telling meaning by analyzing the relationship between constructed action (bodily enactment) and regular telling (traditional language use with lexical items) in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). The project addresses the question with the help of Corpus FinSL, motion capture (MoCap) and electroencephalography (EEG) data.

Table of contents

Project duration
-
Core fields of research
Information technology and the human in the knowledge society
Languages, culture and society
Research areas
Sign Language Centre
Department
Department of Language and Communication Studies
Co-operation
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), University of Edinburgh, University of Birmingham, Sign Language Centre, Centre for Interdisciplinary Brain Research (CIBR/JYU)
Faculty
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Project description

The ShowTell project investigates how showing meaning is connected to telling meaning by analyzing the relationship between constructed action (CA; bodily enactment) and regular telling (RT; traditional language use with lexical items) in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). Recent research on sign languages suggests that, although CA and RT are two different types of phenomena, they intertwine and overlap. However, the exact details of this interconnectedness are not known. In order to contribute to the attempts of the field to better understand the relationship between CA and RT, this project addresses the issue with the help of Corpus FinSL, motion capture (MoCap) and electroencephalography (EEG) data. These data types reflect the social (use), physical (kinematic movement production) and cognitive (brain-based meaning processing) dimensions of language, and in the project they are approached both quantitatively and qualitatively. In the short term, the knowledge produced by the project can be used, for example, as control material in comparative studies, including in spoken languages. From a more applied perspective, the results will serve as a basis for the production of new pedagogical material, which has so far been scarce in the field of FinSL pedagogy. Ultimately, investigating the relationship between CA and RT from the proposed perspectives in FinSL will provide information crucial for our understanding of the multidimensionality of language in general. ShowTell is funded by the Academy of Finland for the years 2021–2025.

Project team

External members

Lindsay Ferrara

Professor
NTNU

Benjamin Anible

Associate professor
NTNU

Gabrielle Hodge

Senior researcher
University of Edinburgh

Gerardo Ortega

Associate professor
University of Birmingham

Laura Kanto

Academy research fellow
JYU

Noora Hoffrén

PhD researcher
JYU

Juhana Salonen

Project researcher
JYU

Outi Pippuri

Project researcher
JYU

Tuija Wainio

Project secretary
JYU