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Iconicity and transparency in Dutch Sign Language.
Annika Schiefner1, Floris Roelofsen2, Beyza Sümer3
1Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 107, 1098 XG, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. a.schiefner@uva.nl.
Behavior Research Methods
|March 14, 2026
Summary
Iconicity perception in Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebarentaal, NGT) varies by rater group. Signers rate their own language as more iconic, but matching raters to target populations is key for accurate psycholinguistic predictions.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
- Sign Language Studies
Background:
- Iconicity, the visual link between form and meaning, is central to sign language research.
- Transparency, or the guessability of a sign's meaning from its form, is closely related to iconicity.
- Measuring iconicity and transparency accurately is crucial but remains a challenge in sign language linguistics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare iconicity ratings and transparency scores for Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebarentaal, NGT) signs.
- To investigate how different rater groups (deaf NGT signers, Dutch non-signers, German non-signers) perceive iconicity.
- To determine the optimal rater population for predicting psycholinguistic outcomes in sign language research.
Main Methods:
- Collected iconicity ratings and transparency scores for 1412 NGT lexical signs.
- Recruited three groups of participants: deaf NGT signers, Dutch non-signers, and German non-signers.
- Analyzed how rater group influences iconicity perception and transparency task performance.
Main Results:
- Signers perceived their own sign language (NGT) as more iconic than non-signers did.
- No significant differences in iconicity perception were found between Dutch and German non-signers.
- Transparency task performance was best predicted by iconicity ratings from participants of the same population (Dutch non-signers) and non-signers broadly.
Conclusions:
- Iconicity perception is subjective and depends on the rater's linguistic background and familiarity with the sign language.
- There is no single 'correct' population for iconicity ratings; matching raters to target populations is essential for psycholinguistic validity.
- An extensive database of NGT signs with iconicity and transparency data is provided for future research, aligned with existing NGT resources.
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