Progress in Sign Language Research

by Rolf Schulmeister, Heimo Reinitzer (Contributor)

To celebrate the 60th birthday of Siegmund Prillwitz, founder of the Institute for German Sign Language at Hamburg University, and to honour his thirty years of commitment in the field of sign language research, sixteen renowned researchers and research teams from all over the world have published a Festschrift titled "Fortschritte in der Gebärdensprachforschung — Festschrift für Siegmund Prillwitz / Progress in Sign Language Research — In Honor of Siegmund Prillwitz". The list of contributors is ample evidence of Siegmund Prillwitz' high standing in the international research Harlan Lane, Carol Padden, Sherman Wilcox, Philip M. Prinz, Dan I. Slobin and Ronnie Wilbur from the USA, Adam Schembri from Australia, Bencie Woll and Jim Kyle from England, Nini Hoiting from the Netherlands, Penny Boyes-Braem from Switzerland, Elena Pizzuto and Virginia Volterra from Italy, Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen from Denmark, Franz Dotter from Austria, Chrissostomos Papaspyrou from Greece, Renate Fischer, Thomas Hanke and Hubert Wudtke from Germany. The volume's double title in German and English is due to the fact that thirteen of the sixteen papers have been written in English and only three in German. The Festschrift contributions cover topics about in the history of sign language communities, linguistic analyses in sign language research, and insights from education and training. Reflecting the authors' countries of origin, the papers relate to several European and non-European sign languages, and in many cases even compare several languages, with the authors generally succeeding in bringing out the important universal linguistic aspects.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 30, 2002