Conference Presentation: Phonetics of head nods in German Sign Language (DGS)

Abstract

In this study we analyze head nods in German Sign Language (DGS), using the Public DGS Corpus (Konrad et al., 2020). We identify that head nods simultaneously occur with various (non)-lexical manual forms, but more frequently head nods are produced on their own and/or replace the manual signs. The aim of the study is two-fold. First, we describe the basic phonetic properties of head nods in DGS and their interaction with manual signs. Secondly, we investigate whether the phonetic properties of head nods fulfilling various functions in discourse differ significantly. We hypothesize that head nods functioning as affirmative responses are larger in amplitude than head nods which signal feedback in interaction.