Teacher(s)
Language
French Belgian Sign Language
Prerequisites
The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.
Content
BMHLS1212A (1st term)
Grammar section (15 hours with Chantal Gerday): each lesson will focus on a specific grammatical topic. The theory will be briefly explained, followed by practical exercises. Students will be encouraged to build on the concepts covered in the first block of the Bachelor’s programme, whilst new concepts such as the structure of complex sentences, comparatives, superlatives, etc. will also be addressed.
The grammatical topics will not necessarily be covered in the order presented above.
Linguistics section (15 hours with Nicolas Hanquet):
The course will be structured around several linguistic themes related to LSFB.
Students will study the following topics:
1. The grammar of LSFB
2. Iconicity in sign language
3. Constructed actions and reported speech in LSFB
Particular attention will be paid to the practical application of theoretical concepts to the learning of LSFB. Students will be encouraged to familiarise themselves with academic articles and to attend lectures on linguistic research into sign languages.
External speakers may be invited to present specific research.
BMHLS1212B (2nd term)
Grammar section (15 hours with Chantal Gerday): Practical exercises focusing on specific grammatical topics. Students will be encouraged to consolidate the concepts covered in B1 and in the first term of B2, whilst also exploring new concepts.
Linguistics section (15 hours with Thierry Haesenne)
The course will focus on constructing actions in LSFB based on French texts. Students will be guided to create highly iconic structures in LSFB, building on the theoretical concepts covered in the first term.
The annotation techniques covered in Term 1 with Nicolas Hanquet will be explored in greater depth if necessary.
Grammar section (15 hours with Chantal Gerday): each lesson will focus on a specific grammatical topic. The theory will be briefly explained, followed by practical exercises. Students will be encouraged to build on the concepts covered in the first block of the Bachelor’s programme, whilst new concepts such as the structure of complex sentences, comparatives, superlatives, etc. will also be addressed.
The grammatical topics will not necessarily be covered in the order presented above.
Linguistics section (15 hours with Nicolas Hanquet):
The course will be structured around several linguistic themes related to LSFB.
Students will study the following topics:
1. The grammar of LSFB
2. Iconicity in sign language
3. Constructed actions and reported speech in LSFB
Particular attention will be paid to the practical application of theoretical concepts to the learning of LSFB. Students will be encouraged to familiarise themselves with academic articles and to attend lectures on linguistic research into sign languages.
External speakers may be invited to present specific research.
BMHLS1212B (2nd term)
Grammar section (15 hours with Chantal Gerday): Practical exercises focusing on specific grammatical topics. Students will be encouraged to consolidate the concepts covered in B1 and in the first term of B2, whilst also exploring new concepts.
Linguistics section (15 hours with Thierry Haesenne)
The course will focus on constructing actions in LSFB based on French texts. Students will be guided to create highly iconic structures in LSFB, building on the theoretical concepts covered in the first term.
The annotation techniques covered in Term 1 with Nicolas Hanquet will be explored in greater depth if necessary.
Teaching methods
Lectures, practical exercises, group discussions, reading and research.
Students will be required to undertake an individual project analysing LSFB.
Students will be required to undertake an individual project analysing LSFB.
Evaluation methods
BMHLS1212A
January and August/September sessions:
In the event of failure, assessments failed in the first session (written examinations and mid-term assessment) will be retaken in the second session.
If the unit is not passed within a year, all exams will have to be retaken the following year.
BMHLS1212B
June and August/September sessions:
In the event of failure, assessments failed in the first session (written/video assessments and the mid-term assessment) may be retaken in the second session.
If the unit is not passed within a year, all exams will have to be retaken the following year.
Attendance at face-to-face sessions is compulsory. Under Article 73 of the RGEE, a student’s unauthorised absence from a course may result in disciplinary action; course lecturers may propose to the examination board that a student who has not attended at least 80 per cent of the classes be barred from sitting the January or August/September examination sessions.
January and August/September sessions:
- Grammar component: written and/or video-based examination (50% of the final grade for the BMHLS1212A course unit).
- Linguistics component (50% of the final grade for the BMHLS1212A course unit): interim assessment (30% of the grade for this component): presentation of an assignment identifying linguistic features in an LSFB video using ELAN. Final assessment (70% of the grade for this component): written assignment to be submitted during the January examination period.
In the event of failure, assessments failed in the first session (written examinations and mid-term assessment) will be retaken in the second session.
If the unit is not passed within a year, all exams will have to be retaken the following year.
BMHLS1212B
June and August/September sessions:
- Grammar section: Written and/or video examination (50% of the final mark for module BMHLS1212B)
- Linguistics component: Interim assessment (15% of the final mark for module BMHLS1212B): analysis of a French text, and translation into LSFB using constructed actions. Final assessment (35% of the final mark for module BMHLS1212A): written and video assessment to be submitted during the June session.
In the event of failure, assessments failed in the first session (written/video assessments and the mid-term assessment) may be retaken in the second session.
If the unit is not passed within a year, all exams will have to be retaken the following year.
Attendance at face-to-face sessions is compulsory. Under Article 73 of the RGEE, a student’s unauthorised absence from a course may result in disciplinary action; course lecturers may propose to the examination board that a student who has not attended at least 80 per cent of the classes be barred from sitting the January or August/September examination sessions.
Bibliography
Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus Linguistics : Investigating Language Structure and Use (1re .dition). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511804489
Candea, M. (2008). Contribution à l’étude des pauses silencieuses et des phénomènes dits d’hésitation en français oral spontané étude sur un corpus de récits en classe de français. Thèse de doctorat non publiée, Université Paris III. HALtheses. https://theses.hal.science/tel-00290143/
Coates, J., & Sutton-Spence, R. (2001). Turn-taking patterns in deaf conversation. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 5(4), 507-529. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00162
Crasborn, Onno & Han Sloetjes. 2008. Enhanced ELAN functionality for sign language corpora. In Onno Crasborn, Eleni Efthimiou, Thomas Hanke, Ernst D. Thoutenhoofd & Inge Zwitserlood (eds.), The Third Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora, 39–43. Paris: European Language Resources Association. Available at: https://www.mpi.nl/publications/item_6104.
Cuxac, C. (2000). La langue des signes Fran.aise (LSF) : Les voies de l’iconicit.. Ophrys. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03450871v1
De Meulder, M. (2019). “So, why do you sign?” Deaf and hearing new signers, their motivation, and revitalisation policies for sign languages. Applied Linguistics Review, 10(4), 705-724. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2017-0100
Dejemeppe, J. (2020). L'interpr.te fran.ais-LSFB face aux registres de langue : étude de la prise en compte de ce paramètre discursif en situation d'interprétation. Mémoire de master non publi., UCLouvain. https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/entities/masterthesis/94b0a966-447d-4a05-82eb-9e03d006c8ab
Ferrara, Lindsay & Gabrielle Hodge. 2018. Language as description, indication, and depiction. Frontiers in Psychology 9. 716.
Gabarro-Lopez, S. (2017). Discourse markers in French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) and Catalan Sign Language (LSC): BUOYS, PALM-UP and SAME: Variation, functions and position in discourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, UNamur. https://researchportal.unamur.be/en/studentTheses/discourse-markers-infrench-belgian-sign-language-lsfb-and-catala
Gabarro-Lopez, S. (2024). Towards a description of palm-up in bidirectional signed language interpreting. Lingua, 300, 103646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2023.103646
Gabarro-Lopez, S., Meurant, L., & Hanquet, N. (2024). Crossing boundaries : Using French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) and multimodal French corpora for contrastive, translation and interpreting studies. Across Languages and Cultures, 25(2), 268-287. https://doi.org/10.1556/084.2024.00913
Hanquet, N., Meurant, L., & Etienne, D. (2024). Dialogue between the lines: Deaf and hearing interpreters’ interaction during intralingual co-interpretation. In (Special Issue ; Lepeu A. & Shaw, E. Eds.) Sign Language Studies, 24(3), 686 – 721. https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a928060
Lepeut, A. (2022). When hands stop moving, interaction keeps going. A study of manual holds in the management of conversation in French-speaking and signing Belgium. Languages in Contrast : International Journal of Contrastive Linguistics, 22(2), 290-321. https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00021.lep
Lepeut, A. (2023). Negotiation of mutual understanding in signed conversations: The case of backchanneling in LSFB (paper presentation). Presentation at the 45th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), Cologne, Germany,March 6–8. https://dgfs2023.uni-koeln.de/sites/dgfs2023/Abstracts/Abstract-AG04-05-Alysson.pdf
Lepeut, A., Shaw, E. (2022). Time is ripe to make interactional moves: Bringing evidence from four languages across modalities. Frontiers in Communication, 7, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.780124.
Meurant, Laurence. 2008. Le regard en langue des signes: Anaphore en langue des signes française de Belgique (LSFB), morphologie, syntaxe, énonciation. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Meurant, Laurence. 2015. Corpus LSFB. First digital open access corpus of movies and annotations of French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB). University of Namur, LSFB-Lab. Available at: http://www.corpus-lsfb.be.
Meurant, Laurence, Alysson Lepeut, Anna Tavier, Sébastien Vandenitte, Clara Lombart, Sílvia Gabarró-López & Aurélie Sinte. in preparation. The multimodal FRAPé corpus: Towards building a comparable LSFB and Belgian French corpus. Laboratoire de Langue des signes de Belgique francophone (LSFB-Lab), University of Namur.
Meurant, Laurence, Aurélie Sinte & Silvia Gabarró-López. 2022. A multimodal approach to reformulation: Contrastive study of French and French Belgian Sign Language through the productions of speakers, signers and interpreters. Languages in Contrast 22(2). 322–360.
Notarrigo, Ingrid. 2017. Marqueurs de (Dis)fluence en Langue des Signes de Belgique Francophone. PhD diss., University of Namur.
Notarrigo, Ingrid & Laurence Meurant. 2019. Conversations Spontanées en Langue des Signes de Belgique Francophone (LSFB): Fonctions et Usages de la Répétition. Lidil. Revue de Linguistique et de Didactique des Langues 60. https://doi.org/10.4000/lidil.7002.
Snell, J., Shaw, S., & Copland, F. (2015). Linguistic ethnography : Interdisciplinary explorations. Palgrave Advances in Language &Linguistics (PADLL). Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137035035
Vandenitte, S. (2024). Making referents seen and heard: Comparing constructed action practices in LSFB (French-Belgian Sign Language) and Belgian French. Thèse de doctorat non-publiée, Universit. de Namur. https://researchportal.unamur.be/fr/studentTheses/making-referents-seen-andheard
Vermeerbergen, Myriam. 2006. Past and current trends in sign language research. Language & Communication 26(2). 168–192.
Candea, M. (2008). Contribution à l’étude des pauses silencieuses et des phénomènes dits d’hésitation en français oral spontané étude sur un corpus de récits en classe de français. Thèse de doctorat non publiée, Université Paris III. HALtheses. https://theses.hal.science/tel-00290143/
Coates, J., & Sutton-Spence, R. (2001). Turn-taking patterns in deaf conversation. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 5(4), 507-529. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00162
Crasborn, Onno & Han Sloetjes. 2008. Enhanced ELAN functionality for sign language corpora. In Onno Crasborn, Eleni Efthimiou, Thomas Hanke, Ernst D. Thoutenhoofd & Inge Zwitserlood (eds.), The Third Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora, 39–43. Paris: European Language Resources Association. Available at: https://www.mpi.nl/publications/item_6104.
Cuxac, C. (2000). La langue des signes Fran.aise (LSF) : Les voies de l’iconicit.. Ophrys. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03450871v1
De Meulder, M. (2019). “So, why do you sign?” Deaf and hearing new signers, their motivation, and revitalisation policies for sign languages. Applied Linguistics Review, 10(4), 705-724. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2017-0100
Dejemeppe, J. (2020). L'interpr.te fran.ais-LSFB face aux registres de langue : étude de la prise en compte de ce paramètre discursif en situation d'interprétation. Mémoire de master non publi., UCLouvain. https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be/entities/masterthesis/94b0a966-447d-4a05-82eb-9e03d006c8ab
Ferrara, Lindsay & Gabrielle Hodge. 2018. Language as description, indication, and depiction. Frontiers in Psychology 9. 716.
Gabarro-Lopez, S. (2017). Discourse markers in French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) and Catalan Sign Language (LSC): BUOYS, PALM-UP and SAME: Variation, functions and position in discourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, UNamur. https://researchportal.unamur.be/en/studentTheses/discourse-markers-infrench-belgian-sign-language-lsfb-and-catala
Gabarro-Lopez, S. (2024). Towards a description of palm-up in bidirectional signed language interpreting. Lingua, 300, 103646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2023.103646
Gabarro-Lopez, S., Meurant, L., & Hanquet, N. (2024). Crossing boundaries : Using French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) and multimodal French corpora for contrastive, translation and interpreting studies. Across Languages and Cultures, 25(2), 268-287. https://doi.org/10.1556/084.2024.00913
Hanquet, N., Meurant, L., & Etienne, D. (2024). Dialogue between the lines: Deaf and hearing interpreters’ interaction during intralingual co-interpretation. In (Special Issue ; Lepeu A. & Shaw, E. Eds.) Sign Language Studies, 24(3), 686 – 721. https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a928060
Lepeut, A. (2022). When hands stop moving, interaction keeps going. A study of manual holds in the management of conversation in French-speaking and signing Belgium. Languages in Contrast : International Journal of Contrastive Linguistics, 22(2), 290-321. https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00021.lep
Lepeut, A. (2023). Negotiation of mutual understanding in signed conversations: The case of backchanneling in LSFB (paper presentation). Presentation at the 45th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), Cologne, Germany,March 6–8. https://dgfs2023.uni-koeln.de/sites/dgfs2023/Abstracts/Abstract-AG04-05-Alysson.pdf
Lepeut, A., Shaw, E. (2022). Time is ripe to make interactional moves: Bringing evidence from four languages across modalities. Frontiers in Communication, 7, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.780124.
Meurant, Laurence. 2008. Le regard en langue des signes: Anaphore en langue des signes française de Belgique (LSFB), morphologie, syntaxe, énonciation. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Meurant, Laurence. 2015. Corpus LSFB. First digital open access corpus of movies and annotations of French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB). University of Namur, LSFB-Lab. Available at: http://www.corpus-lsfb.be.
Meurant, Laurence, Alysson Lepeut, Anna Tavier, Sébastien Vandenitte, Clara Lombart, Sílvia Gabarró-López & Aurélie Sinte. in preparation. The multimodal FRAPé corpus: Towards building a comparable LSFB and Belgian French corpus. Laboratoire de Langue des signes de Belgique francophone (LSFB-Lab), University of Namur.
Meurant, Laurence, Aurélie Sinte & Silvia Gabarró-López. 2022. A multimodal approach to reformulation: Contrastive study of French and French Belgian Sign Language through the productions of speakers, signers and interpreters. Languages in Contrast 22(2). 322–360.
Notarrigo, Ingrid. 2017. Marqueurs de (Dis)fluence en Langue des Signes de Belgique Francophone. PhD diss., University of Namur.
Notarrigo, Ingrid & Laurence Meurant. 2019. Conversations Spontanées en Langue des Signes de Belgique Francophone (LSFB): Fonctions et Usages de la Répétition. Lidil. Revue de Linguistique et de Didactique des Langues 60. https://doi.org/10.4000/lidil.7002.
Snell, J., Shaw, S., & Copland, F. (2015). Linguistic ethnography : Interdisciplinary explorations. Palgrave Advances in Language &Linguistics (PADLL). Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137035035
Vandenitte, S. (2024). Making referents seen and heard: Comparing constructed action practices in LSFB (French-Belgian Sign Language) and Belgian French. Thèse de doctorat non-publiée, Universit. de Namur. https://researchportal.unamur.be/fr/studentTheses/making-referents-seen-andheard
Vermeerbergen, Myriam. 2006. Past and current trends in sign language research. Language & Communication 26(2). 168–192.
Faculty or entity
