A Contrastive Study Of Segmental Structure And Prosodic Structure Based On Sign Language Phonology Between Chinese And English Sign Language

Sign language is a kind of gesture language commonly used by deaf-mutes and hearing-impaired people.It is the main tool for deaf-mutes to express thoughts and communicate with others through handshape,movement,facial expression and spatial position.Since the development of sign language linguistics in the 1960 s,many foreign linguists have made extensive studies on sign language linguistics and formed a systematic theory of sign language linguistics.However,the linguistic study of Chinese Sign Language(CSL)started relatively late,especially in the phonological studies of sign language.In recent years,the study of Sign Language Phonology(SLP)has gradually become an important subject in the study of sign language linguistics in China,while few studies focus on the analysis of two sign language phonologies from the perspective of contrastive studies.Therefore,it is necessary to analyze the phonological studies of sign language.The analysis of the phonology of English Sign Language(ESL)and CSL can lay a foundation for the study of CSL linguistics in a larger domain.Based on Selkirk's Prosodic Hierarchy Theory,this paper takes CSL and ESL as a linguistic corpus,analyzes the segmental structure and prosodic structure of CSL and ESL by giving examples to illustrate the similarities and differences between ESL and CSL from the perspective of phonology.Through the contrast of syllable,prosodic word,phonological phrase,intonational phrase and utterance,this paper shows the similarities and differences between ESL and CSL.The major findings of this study can be divided into five aspects.First,CSL and ESL have the same syllable types,including PMP,MP,PM,M and P.Movement can produce secondary movement in ESL.In contrast,secondary movement can occur at the P position in CSL.Second,non-dominant hand spreading can be regarded as a boundary marker of prosodic words.The mouth actions are different between CSL and ESL.Third,non-dominant hand spreading and phrase-final lengthening are boundary markers of phonological phrase.The difference is that the phenomenon of reduplication at the end of ESL and CSL.Fourth,in terms of intonational phrase,brow raise characterizes conditional sentence.And the two boundary markers may combine to form a new meaning.Fifth,concerning the utterance,non-manual expressions can indicate the relative clause,conditional sentence,yes-no question and wh-question.Besides,signer modifies the subordinate clause by raising eyebrows in ESL.However,there is no raised brow in CSL.The contrastive study of segmental structure and prosodic structure of ESL and CSL can not only provide a unique perspective for exploring the similarities and differences between different sign languages but also provide broad research space for studying the influence of language carrier on language structure.The study of SLP is of great significance in exploring the nature of human language and should be paid more attention by linguists.The purpose of this paper is to promote the progress of CSL teaching,sign language translation and the development of CSL through the contrastive study of different languages.