News

SignLab presents new research at the "Chalk Talks"
On May 16, Thomas Finkbeiner and Markus Steinbach presented current research topics of the SignLab Göttingen at the Chalk Talks/Signs. In addition to recent studies on the distinction between nouns and verbs in DGS, the focus was also on important issues relating to the participation of the Deaf community and accessibility in research and teaching. After a short bimodal introduction with chalk, voice and hands, the two presenters answered many questions from the interested and very active audience, so that the time flew by (photo © Martin Liebetruth and Forum Wissen Chalk Talk).

New article from "WissesnWert|DGS" in Life InSight
In issue 152 of "Life InSight", Thomas Finkbeiner, Julia Berginski, Alexander Silbersdorff and Nina-Kristin Meister published as part of the "WissensWert|DGS" working group a bimodal info text on the importance of DGS translations and subtitles in statistical educational videos. The article in written German can be downloaded hier. DGS version of the article:


Conference report on FEAST by Liona Paulus and Thomas Finkbeiner in "DAS ZEICHEN"
The conference “Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory (FEAST)” took place from August 6 to 8, 2024 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA. Our SignLab was also represented there with a presentation (“The Grammaticalization of a Motion Verb into an Imperative Marker in two Sign Languages” by Marianthi Koraka, Thomas Finkbeiner, Nina-Kristin Meister, Gautam Ottur and Markus Steinbach). In the new ZEICHEN issue 124, Liona Paulus and Thomas Finkbeiner have published a conference report on the conference in DGS.

Two newly acquired third-party funded projects for our SignLab
We are delighted that Nina-Kristin Meister and her colleagues have acquired two new projects for the SignLab at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Together with Sevtlana Dachkovsky from the University of Haifa, they have been granted the project "From gesture to grammar and lexicon: tracking conventionalization and grammaticalization of multifunctional expressions in German Sign Language and Israeli Sign Language" in the funding programme "zukunft.niedersachen | Forschungskooperation Niedersachsen-Israel" by the MWK and the Volkswagen Foundation. The project will start in September 2025 and run for four years. This project builds on a long-standing cooperation between the sign language laboratories in Göttingen and Haifa and jointly investigates the two historically related sign languages with regard to the conventionalization and grammaticalization of specific multifunctional expressions.
Furthermore, Julia Berginski and Nina-Kristin Meister have acquired the "Statistics without Borders" project from the "Freiraum 2025" funding line of the Stiftung Innovation Hochschullehre. As part of this project, accessible digital teaching modules on the topic of statistics and data analysis are being created. The topics covered include data and data worlds, probabilities, statistical measures, statistical modeling and AI.The project started in May 2025 with a two-year duration and is being carried out in close cooperation with the working group "Barrier-free teaching and learning videos in university teaching (BaLLviHo)".

The SignTeam will be invited to the “Chalk Talks”
On May 16, Thomas Funkbeiner and Markus Steinbach are invited together to the Chalk Talks/Signs to explain “What signs and gestures tell us about nouns and verbs”. The presentation will focus on a new research project of the SignLab, but will also look at the active involvement of the deaf community in research on their sign language and the barriers deaf researchers are confroneted with on a daily basis. In this presentation format, the speakers will dispense with modern technology and only rely on chalk and blackboard. Everyone who is interested is welcome! Further information on the Chalk Talks can be found here.

Silva Ladewig received her habilitation at the Faculty of Humanities
And once again CONGRATULATIONS: Silva Ladewig successfully accomplished the final part of her habilitation procedure at the University of Göttingen with a convincing inaugural lecture on "Mental Spaces in Narratives". Silva wrote a habilitation thesis on "Dimensions of Gestural Recurrenz: Forms, Meaning and Stabilization" and received the license to teach for the topic German Linguistics with a focus on Visual Communication. We are all delighted with her about this excellent achievement!

Zeming Xu successfully defended his PhD thesis
CONGRATULATIONS! Zeming submitted his PhD thesis at the end of March 2025 and successfully defended it at the end of April. In his PhD thesis, he investigates the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of asymmetric coordinations from a theoretical, experimental and typological perspective. One main focus of the PhD thesis is on the pragmatic enrichment of underspecified coordinators such as ‘und’ in German or 'and' in English. After an extremely successful defense, there was a joint lunch with the supervisors and colleagues. We are all delighted for him!


New dates for the Sign Language Café
On May 8. and 22., June 6. and 19., and July 3. and 17., we will meet again at 4 p.m. for about an hour in the “Café Central” at Göttingen University for our Sign Language Café. The Sign Language Café is another opportunity for all DGS friends to exchange ideas and to practice signing. It is also particularly suitable for students who have completed DGS 3. We would like to ask everyone to communicate exclusively in DGS. Anyone who has the time and inclination is welcome to drop by spontaneously. As always, we are happy to welcome anyone who would like to join us :-)



Book raffle "100 Fragen und Antworten rund um die Deutsche Gebärdensprache (DGS)"
We would like to invite you to take part in the prize draw for our bimodal bilingual book “100 questions and answers about German Sign Language (DGS)”. Simply answer the three questions from the document or from the following video in DGS, send the answers to ninakristin.meister@uni-goettingen.de and win one of three books. We look forward to your participation.




DGS version of our foreword "Barrier-free publications" (published in: Linguistische Berichte 281)


International Summer School in Sign Language Studies
This summer, an international summer school on Sign Language Studies will take place at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin from July 21 to 25, 2025. The aim of this summer school in sign language studies is to provide an opportunity for advanced students and early career researchers to become acquainted with the range of current developments in sign language studies and to promote the academic discourse in International Sign Language. Lectures will cover different methodological approaches in sign language studies, such as first and second language acquisition, language description and documentation, language typology, sociolinguistics, interpreting / translation studies and sign language ethnography, deaf studies, etc. There will also be three evening presentations, a panel discussion, four poster sessions and a day excursion. Further information on the summer school and registration can be found here.

Paper on DGS-LEX published
The first paper on our DGS-LEX database has been published in the journal "Linguistische Berichte". The short paper presents a “roadmap” for the joint creation of a lexical database for psycholinguistic research on DGS. By combining relevant data sets from various published and ongoing research projects, a new database for lexical variables in DGS such as iconicity, variation or age of acquisition will be created in a collaborative process in the long term, based primarily on subjective judgments of native signers. The new database will bring together data already collected by various research groups according to jointly developed standards and make it publicly accessible. The article is published in English and German and combined with a summary in DGS.

DGS summary of our DGS-LEX paper


ViCom workshop “Dimensions of iconicity in visual modality”
The workshop "Dimensions of Iconicity in the Visual Modality" was held at the University of Göttingen on February 13-14, 2025. The workshop was financially supported by the DFG Priority Programme on Visual Communication (ViCom) and sought to brought together researchers from different fields to discuss the concept of iconicity in visual communication, including iconicity in sign languages, spoken languages, and gestures. The event covered a range of topics, from the impact (or lack thereof) of iconicity on different aspects of visual communication to its role in language processing, acquisition, and teaching. All contributions of the invited presenters as well as other participants who gave on-stage and poster presentations highlighted the complex and multifaceted nature of iconicity in the visual modality. In sum, the workshop provided a platform for interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration, shedding new light on the dimensions of iconicity in the visual modality.

Workshop of the DGS-LEX project
In the run-up to the ViCom workshop “Dimensions of iconicity in visual modality”, the DGS-LEX project met for a working meeting in Göttingen. The aim of the project is to create a new lexical database for psycholinguistic experiments on DGS. The workshop discussed common annotation standards, the linking of our database to the DGS corpus, the integration of HamNoSys transcripts and the first publication of the project in the journal Linguistische Berichte (English, German, DGS). Another important aspect was the visualization of the data, which is based on the ASL database ASL-LEX and the schedule for the preparation and publication of our database.

ViCom statistics workshop
After the successful ViCom workshop on Bayesian statistics with Bodo Winter last year, we are pleased to announce a follow-up workshop. We are happy that João Verissimo (University of Lisbon will be leading this workshop. The three-day workshop will take place from April 9-11, 2025, in person at Goethe University Frankfurt (IG-Farben-Haus, Campus Westend). The course may cover (but is not limited to) Bayesian mixed-effects models, repeated-measures and interaction designs, generalized linear models for binomial, ordinal and reaction time data, Bayesian hypothesis testing (Bayes factor) and modeling of individual differences. The workshop is suitable for both participants of the first workshop (now including interaction designs, etc.) and new participants who didn’t join the first workshop as there will be a brief but impactful review included. Registration is free of charge and can be completed until February 28. Further information on the workshop can be found here.

New dates for the Sign Language Café
On January 9, 23 and February 6, we will meet again at 4 p.m. for about an hour in the “Café Central” at Göttingen University for our Sign Language Café. The Sign Language Café is another opportunity for all DGS friends to exchange ideas and to practice signing. It is also particularly suitable for students who have completed DGS 3. We would like to ask everyone to communicate exclusively in DGS. Anyone who has the time and inclination is welcome to drop by spontaneously. As always, we are happy to welcome anyone who would like to join us :-)


SignTeam at the TISLR conference in Addis Ababa
The Göttingen SignTeam participated with three presentations once again in the world largest international conference on sign language linguistics, Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research, short TISLR, which took place this year in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia. Thomas presented current results of our Vicom project on the impact of iconicity on parts of speech. Pia presented first results of her rating study on lexical iconicity in German Sign Language. And Marianthi presented a poster on negative imperative speech acts in Greek and and American Sign Language. It was a very exciting and well-organized conference in this exciting city. Not only did we receive interesting feedback on our presentation, but we also met many nice colleagues and were able to establish new networks.

ViCom workshop “Dimensions of iconicity in visual modality”
On February 13 and 14, a workshop on “Dimensions of Iconicity in Visual Modality” will take place at the University of Göttingen. The workshop is jointly organized by three ViCom projects located in Göttingen and will deal with iconicity as a potentially general property of natural human languages in all modalities, i.e. spoken, written and signed. Recent research on multimodal communication shows that iconicity not only influences the relationship between form and meaning in sign languages, but also plays a greater role in spoken languages (e.g. ideophones and vocal gestures) and in speech-accompanying gestures than previously assumed. Further information on the workshop can be found here.