Volume 1 (2024) · Article 3-3 · English version
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Topic: DeafDidaktik
The German and Austrian Passive Voice in Sign Language (Part 1)
Topic: DeafDidaktik
The German and Austrian Passive Voice in Sign Language (Part 1)
Fenkart, L., Staudt, B., Sieprath, H., Leuninger, H.. Ni, D. & Grote K.
This video is a secondary publication. The original version was published in Das Zeichen.
Abstract
Abstract
This article investigates whether Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) and German Sign Language (DGS) have a grammatical passive, and how such a passive can be used in deaf education. It draws on DeafDidaktik, an inductive teaching concept developed since 2016 that builds instruction around the spatial, non-hierarchical structures of sign language rather than the linear grammar of spoken and written language. The article addresses a persistent pedagogical problem: deaf students are typically taught the active/passive distinction through explanations grounded in German, which do not correspond to how their first language actually marks the backgrounding of an agent. It first outlines how the passive is analyzed in spoken and written German, from both a syntactic and a thematic-role perspective, and then reviews prior research on passive-like constructions in American, Catalan, and Irish Sign Language, as well as Hansen's (2007) claim that DGS has no morphological passive.
Building on this background, the authors present an exploratory study in which eight native signers from Austria and Germany retold a picture story chosen to elicit passive constructions. Video analysis identified three related passive forms, all built on unaccusative verbs and a shift from an agent to a patient/theme perspective, realized through classifier constructions, gaze direction, mouthing, and spatial placement rather than through morphological marking. The results suggest that a functional passive exists in ÖGS and DGS and point to concrete manual and non-manual markers that can be used to teach it. The article also reflects methodologically on DeafDidaktik as a sign-language-internal research approach, termed "DeafWissenschaft," that avoids importing categories from spoken-language grammar, and it previews a second part presenting classroom-ready teaching materials.
Keywords: DeafDidaktik; sign language passive; Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS); German Sign Language (DGS); classifier constructions; unaccusativity; agent backgrounding; deaf education.
Cite
Cite
Fenkart, L., Staudt, B., Sieprath, H., Leuninger, H.. Ni, D. & Grote K. (2024). The German and Austrian Passive Voice in Sign Language (Part 1). Deaf Journal, 1 , Article 3-3.
Introduction to DeafDidaktik
Introduction to DeafDidaktik
Since 2016, the DeafDidaktik team at RWTH Aachen University has been engaged in theoretical and practical research aimed at developing a didactic concept that considers language-modality-dependent semantic structures in the cognitive system of deaf individuals who are proficient in sign language (Grote et al., 2018).
This form of didactics is inductive, whereby a context is created based on changes of perspective and the localization of content in space and semantics, as a means of organizing content less hierarchically and linearly, and which is therefore referred to as "DeafDidaktik" or DD (for further details on this, see Grote 2016, 143).
Thus far, exemplary teaching materials have been developed in many subject areas. German (e.g., the dative or accusative in local prepositions), mathematics (e.g., text problems), biology (e.g., the structure of a cell), and numerous other subjects. The teaching materials and deaf didactic findings developed thus far (still in progress) were presented to the public for the first time in a one-day online workshop in 2021 (Grote et al., 2022).
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