{"id":4102,"date":"2026-04-02T11:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/?p=4102"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:25:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:25:25","slug":"iconicity-and-semantic-transparency-in-hong-kong-sign-language-evidence-from-ratings-and-three-guessing-paradigms-published-in-the-language-and-cognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/archives\/4102","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIconicity and semantic transparency in Hong Kong Sign Language: Evidence from ratings and three guessing paradigms\u201d published\u00a0in Language and Cognition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We are pleased to announce the publication of a new article in <em>Language and Cognition<\/em> by Arthur, Aaron,  Mavies, Rachel,  Judy and Youngah, titled <em>Iconicity and semantic transparency in Hong Kong Sign Language: Evidence from ratings and three guessing paradigms<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This study investigates how strongly signs in Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) are perceived to resemble their meanings, a property known as iconicity, and how this relates to how easily meanings can be inferred by people with no knowledge of HKSL. The authors collected iconicity ratings for 972 HKSL signs from both Deaf native HKSL signers and hearing Cantonese-speaking non-signers, and examined how these ratings relate to performance in several meaning\u2011guessing tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Results show that HKSL signs are rated as comparably iconic to signs in other well\u2011studied sign languages, including American Sign Language and Israeli Sign Language, with Deaf signers assigning higher iconicity ratings overall. Across tasks, signs rated as more iconic were also more likely to be guessed correctly by hearing non-signers. Importantly, the study shows that semantic transparency is not all\u2011or\u2011nothing: when contextual information is provided through multiple\u2011choice options, many signs become \u201ctranslucent,\u201d allowing accurate inference, whereas open\u2011ended guessing without context is much more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By combining large\u2011scale iconicity ratings with multiple guessing paradigms and cross\u2011linguistic comparisons, this work provides a new empirical baseline for studying iconicity and semantic transparency in HKSL and contributes to broader discussions about how form\u2013meaning relationships are perceived across sign languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-subtle-background-background-color has-background\"><strong>Thompson, A., Chik, A., Ngai, M., Chen, R., Ng, J.,&nbsp;<\/strong>&amp;&nbsp;<strong>Do, Y.<\/strong>&nbsp;(2026). Iconicity and semantic transparency in Hong Kong Sign Language: Evidence from ratings and three guessing paradigms. <em>Language and Cognition, 18, <\/em>Article e21.  <a href=\" https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/langcog.2026.10070\"><span class=\"material-symbols-outlined\">open_in_new<\/span>DOI<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are pleased to announce the publication of a new article in Language and Cognition by Arthur, Aaron, Mavies, Rachel, Judy and Youngah, titled Iconicity and semantic transparency in Hong Kong Sign Language: Evidence from ratings and three guessing paradigms. This study investigates how strongly signs in Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) are perceived to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4102"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4522,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions\/4522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.hku.hk\/ldlhku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}