Norm emergence in German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS): reconstruction of Enregisterment processes in the DGS community

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The project aims at determining, which linguistic features indicate standard norms in German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS) and seeks to explore the interplay between social and linguistic factors in the emergence of standard sign language norms accepted and recognised within the German Sign Language community. Despite the absence of a codified standard norm in DGS, key features associated with language norm emergence are constantly evolving. These include a growing domain of sign language teaching and learning and an increase in the visibility of model signers and model texts due to recent developments in the information and communication technology sector, which allow for easy transmission of video data via the internet. Both empirical data derived from already existing language corpora as well as new linguistic and meta-linguistic data to be generated from focus groups form the core of the project. Analysing the data in both quantitative and qualitative terms, the data are conceptually interpreted by bringing together Agha`s (2005) concept of enregisterment and Silverstein`s (2003) order of indexicality. Through this new theoretical approach the project will generate new knowledge in the area of standard norm emergence in visual-spatial languages and thereby contribute a fresh, empirically grounded, perspective on the question to what extent established theories on standard language norms emergence are indeed modality independent.