Current Directions in Turkish Sign Language Research

This book aims to contribute to our knowledge of Turkish Sign Language (TID), and sign language linguistics in general. TID is a relatively old signed language, and is, at present, believed to be historically unrelated to other signed languages. Linguistic studies on this language started in the early 2000s. There has been growing academic interest and an increasing body of work on TID within the past decade, enhancing the need for this book, which brings together chapters covering a variety of topics, such as the history of deaf education and TID, issues regarding language documentation, a phonological study of fingerspelling, reciprocals, interrogatives, reported utterances, expressions of spatial relations including their acquisitions, and expressions of multiple entities. This book was supported in part by the TUBITAK Research Fund, Project No. 111K314. This edited volume serves as a useful resource for newcomers to the field, gives new momentum to future research on TID, and offers unique perspectives in investigating sign languages in general. Finally, the intention is that the conversations within this volume will open up new discussions not only within sign linguistics, but also in other related fields such as cognitive science.