Mutual intelligibility between Dutch Sign Language and Flemish Sign Language: To what extent is there an effect of context, iconicity and lexical similarity?
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2024-06-20
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en
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Mutual intelligibility has been widely studied for many spoken languages of different language families. For sign languages, however, there is still little research exploring this topic. It is argued that mutual intelligibility between sign languages should be considered separately from mutual intelligibility between spoken languages as additional factors are thought to play a role, an important factor being iconicity. In a study of the mutual intelligibility between Dutch Sign Language (NGT) and Flemish Sign Language (VGT), the intelligibility of NGT signs by VGT signers was tested by means of a lexical comprehension task which consisted of multiple choice items. Stimuli were selected to measure possible effects of three different variables: (1) sentence context, (2) iconicity of the signs, and (3) similarity to the VGT variants of the sign. As hypothesized, participants performed well above chance level on the test and main effects for all three independent variables were found. Based on the study’s findings, implications are discussed for Flemish deaf pupils living close to the border of the Netherlands and the question whether it is feasible for these pupils to attend classes at deaf schools in the Netherlands where NGT is use.
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