A Study On The Implementation Mechanism From Underlying Structure To Surface Of Shanghai Sign Language

Sign language is a kind of visual-gestural language.Since 1960 s,American linguist William Stokoe first proposed that both sign language and spoken language are natural languages,and signs are equivalent to words in spoken language,which can be further divided into three paraments for analysis: handshape,location and movement.Later,other linguists proposed the element of orientation.Since then,handshape,location,movement and orientation have been identified as the four paraments of sign language,and the study of sign language linguistics has come into the field of linguistic research.Sign language is different around the world,and different countries and regions have their own phonetic,lexical and syntactic features,such as American Sign Language(ASL),British Sign Language(BSL)and so on.Chinese Sign Language(CSL)is a sign system used by deaf people in China.It has phonetic,lexical and syntactic features,and is independent of Chinese,which has a history of about 130 years.There are regional differences in Chinese sign language,with the "north-south difference" being more prominent,but the difference degree is smaller than that between Chinese dialects,among which the southern sign language is represented by Shanghai sign language.In this study,based on the investigation of the collected Shanghai corpus and the partial annotation based on the Elan software,we attempt to explore the composition of sign paraments,the phonological features of handshape,and the implementation of finger and joint and other features in the surface of handshape in Shanghai Sign Language.We suggest that there are 61 surface handshapes,3 articulation planes and 38 specific body parts in Shanghai sign language,11 handparts which have different relative directions with articulation planes,and 2 movement types,4 movement modes and multiple movement paths.In order to find the regular features of sign paraments in these complicated and varied surface phonetic forms,we analyzed and summarized the handshape features,and found that the features of the selected finger,[flexed],[shrunken],the thumb are selected and [opposed] are the bottom phonological features,but there are some features on the distribution difference;[spread] is the most natural state when the hand is stretched out,which is the bottom form;iconicity makes some joint features distinct and stable in the use of Shanghai sign language.According to the characteristics of the underlying phonemes,we try to induct 40 underlying handshape phonemes.Finally,we use sign language production model and Optimality Theory to explore the implementation mechanism of various surface features of the underlying handshape phonemes of Shanghai sign language,and find that the implementation of Shanghai sign language surface handshapes is affected by the language economy principles,the physiological restriction of pronunciation and the iconicity.Some implementation of these surface handshapes produce signs with different meanings,and some do not.However,the ultimate implementation of all handshapes is the result of Optimality Theory in sign production.