ASL-LEX: A lexical database of American Sign Language

Abstract

ASL-LEX is a lexical database that catalogues information about nearly 1,000 signs in American Sign Language (ASL). It includes the following information: subjective frequency ratings from 25–31 deaf signers, iconicity ratings from 21–37 hearing non-signers, videoclip duration, sign length (onset and offset), grammatical class, and whether the sign is initialized, a fingerspelled loan sign or a compound. Information about English translations is available for a subset of signs (e.g., alternate translations, translation consistency). In addition, phonological properties (sign type, selected fingers, flexion, major and minor location, and movement) were coded and used to generate sub-lexical frequency and neighborhood density estimates. ASL-LEX is intended for use by researchers, educators, and students who are interested in the properties of the ASL lexicon. An interactive website where the database can be browsed and downloaded is available at http://asl-lex.org.

The neural circuits recruited for the production of signs and fingerspelled words

“…Increased activation in right cerebellar cortex for body-anchored signs compared to signs produced in neutral space may reflect the cerebellum's role in predicting proprioceptive information about limb position (Boisgonier & Swinnen, 2014; Bhanpuri, Okamura, & Bastian, 2013). Body-anchored signs are not rare – in a large sample of ASL signs (~1000), 65% were specified for locations on the body (trunk, head, arm, or hand) (Caselli et al, 2016). Our results suggest that the activation that has been observed in SPL during the production of ASL may be due in part to the articulatory requirements of body-anchored signs.…”

“…English words in each condition were matched for log10 word frequency per million (D mean = 2.94, SD = 0.78; FS mean = 2.74, SD = 0.75; OH mean = 3.22, SD = 0.84; BA mean = 3.47; SD = 0.87; TH mean = 3.29, SD = 0.86; from SUBTLEX US : http://expsy.ugent.be/subtlexus/), letter length (D mean = 5.75, SD = 1.33; FS mean = 5.73, SD = 1.32; OH mean = 5.75, SD = 1.39; BA mean = 5.75; SD = 1.71; TH mean = 5.75, SD = 1.39), and imageability (rating data from the MRC psycholinguistics database for how easy it is to create a sensory image of a word: D mean = 499, SD = 89; FS mean = 498, SD = 79; OH mean = 497, SD = 92; BA mean = 497; SD = 118; TH mean = 495, SD = 107). The signs produced in the three translation conditions were matched for subjective frequency based on our database of frequency ratings of ASL signs rated on a scale of 1 (very infrequent) to 7 (very frequent) (Caselli, Sevcikova Sehyr, Cohen-Goldberg, & Emmorey, 2016): one-handed signs (mean = 4.65; SD = 0.92); two-handed signs (mean = 4.44; SD = 1.34); body-anchored signs (mean = 4.68; SD = 1.16). The English words in the translation task consistently elicited the expected ASL sign – a different sign translation was produced by participants for only 2% of the data.…”

The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language

“…Three variables were drawn from ASL-LEX (Caselli et al, 2016). The summary statistics that follow were calculated over the 332 items analyzed.…”

“…Eliminating this confound is critical for sign languages because signed phonology and iconicity are interdependent (e.g., Taub, 2001; Emmorey, 2014) and neighborhood density can be correlated with iconicity (Caselli et al, 2016). …”

“…We used ASL-LEX, a newly available lexical database for ASL that includes the first publicly available measure of neighborhood density in any signed language, and information about iconicity and lexical frequency for nearly 1,000 signs (Caselli et al, 2016). With ASL-LEX, we could for the first time examine the individual contributions of iconicity, neighborhood density, and lexical frequency on signed vocabulary development.…”