The Phonological Structure of American Sign Language -ASL and zmânî âmâžaî kurdî - ZAK

Abstract

This paper deals primarily with the phonological structure of American Sign Language (ASL) and zmânî âmâžaî kurdî (ZAK) -Kurdish Sign Language. It is concerned with sign language (SL) and the types of sign language. One type is primary sign languages which are used by the Deaf people. Sign language is a visual-gestural language which relies on the use of the hands, facial expressions and body movements.Generally, there are myths about SLs. People believe that SLs are universal and have no grammatical structure. However, sign languages, as spoken languages, have lexicon, phonology, morphology and syntax. As far as the phonological structure of SLs includes handshape, location, movement and orientation of the hand. Therefore, some questions have been raised focusing on ASL and ZAK phonological structure. One of the questions is that: are the parameters of the phonological structure of ASL and ZAK the same? The aim of the paper is to apply ASL phonological aspects on ZAK. In this study, a mixed method is adopted. What is related to the hypothesis is that ZAK has three phonological parameters. One of the findings is that both ASL and ZAK have the same phonological parameters. As far as recommendation is concerned, more work can be carried out on the differences between ASL and ZAK at all linguistic levels.