ITALIAN SIGN LANGUAGE 3

The course shares the following objectives and expected results: the student knows and understands advanced morpho-syntactic structures and the lexicon of LIS, as well as the main geographic and socio-cultural dimensions of variation; the student is able to produce and understand complex texts and messages both in formal and informal situations; the student is able to gather information from adaquate sources in LIS.

General objectives
Aim of the course is the development of an advanced metalinguistic knowledge of Italian Sign Language focusing on its syntax in a comparative perspective with Italian, spoken and sign languages. The course further aims at developing an advanced grammatical competence in Italian Sign Language.

Detailed objectives
Knowledge and understanding
The student knows the functional equivalent of the syntactic structures in the domain of main and subordinate clauses in Italian Sign Language in a cross-linguistic perspective with spoken and sign languages. The student knows the basic terminology of the syntax of Italian Sign Language. The student knows the syntactic phenomena of sociolinguistic variation in Italian Sign Language.
The student knows the advanced grammar of Italian Sign Language.

Applying knowledge and understanding
The student is able to correctly use the terminology regarding the syntactic domain of Italian Sign Language.
The student recognizes and is able to describe the advanced syntactic constructions of Italian Sign Language.
The student is able to autonomously provide concrete examples of advanced syntactic constructions.
The student understands and produces advanced communicative interactions on main and subordinate sentences.

Making judgements
The student is able to detect similarities and differences between syntactic structures in Italian Sign Languages in other sign languages. The student is able to propose hypotheses on the linguistic features of syntactic constructions displayed by Italian Sign Language on the basis of the features displayed by spoken languages in the same syntactic domain. The student is able to find the bibliographical references the teacher indicates. The student is able to express grammatical judgements on advanced grammatical structures of Italian Sign Language.

Communication
The student is able to describe the grammatical features of the syntactic structures displayed by Italian Sign Language by using the specific terminology and by providing concrete examples.
The student shows to be able to interact with the peers, the professor and the tutor in a critical and respectful way. The student is able to interact in Italian Sign Language in advanced communicative situations.

Learning skills
The student is able to take notes and to apply the method of critical thinking and cross-linguistic comparison to future linguistic studies.
The student is able to consult the literature present in the texts and articles indicated by the professor as well as to find new literature.

The student is required to have passed the course of Italian Sign Language 1, to have attended the course of Sign Language 2 and, possibly, to have passed the course of Italian Sign Language 2.

The course of Italian Sign Language 3 is divided into the theoretical module (Prof. Chiara Branchini in one semester) and the yearly linguistic practice (Dott. Gabriele Caia).

Theoretical module:
Linear order of LIS
Argument structure
Morpho-syntactic agreement
Position of modals, adverbials and aspectual marker
Information structure: topic and focus
The negative clause
The interrogative clause: polar and wh- questions
Reduplication of wh- phrases
Imperative clauses
Conjunctive coordination
Disjunctive coordination
Adversative coordination
Complement clauses
Conditional clauses
Full restrictive relative clauses
Full non-restrictive relative clauses
Free relative clauses

Linguistic practice:
Advanced grammatical competences in the use of main clauses (declarative, interrogative and negative clause) and dependent clauses (conditional clauses, relative clauses, complement clauses)
Advanced competences in the use of nominal and predicative classifiers
Advanced competence in the use of phonological, morphological and syntactic non-manual components
Competences in the use of role shift.

Theoretical module:
A grammar of Italian Sign Language. SIGN-HUB Sign Language Grammars [SHSLG]. A selection of articles will be indicated during the course.
-Pfau R., Steinbach, M., Woll B. (ed) 2012. Sign Language. An international Handbook. Mouton De Gruyter. Students will read the following articles:
- Tense, aspect and modality – Pfau, Steinbach & Woll
- Word order – Leeson & Saeed
- Sentence types - Cecchetto
- Negation - Quer
- Coordination and subordination – Tang & Lau
Pfau R., Steinbach, M., Hermann, A. (2016). A matter of complexity. Mouton De Gruyter. Students will read the following article:
- Complex sentences in sign languages - Pfau & Steinbach
Further articles in electronic format will be made available during the course.

Linguistic practice:
Dizionario bilingue elementare della lingua italiana dei segni. 1992. Elena Radutzky. Edizioni Kappa.
Readings may be suggested by the teacher during classes.

If the emergency due to covid-19 lasts, students will be evaluated through three different stages: (i) the theoretical module will involve an oral examination aiming at verifying the ability to apply and connect the knowledge acquired as well as the student’s competence and use of the specific terminology. (ii) for the linguistic practice, students will go through a written examination aiming at verifying the linguistic comprehension of LIS, and (iii) an oral examination aiming at verifying the advanced communicative competence developed during the linguistic practice in LIS.
To pass the course, the student must pass all three stages of the final examination. The final score is the mean of the three scores obtained during the three partial examinations described above.

Lectures and linguistic practices directed to individuals and groups (depending on restrictions due to covid-19). An extensive range of video recorded linguistic material will be used.

Italian

Theoretical module is taught in Italian
Linguistic practice is taught in Italian Sign Language

Attendance is warmly recommended.

written and oral