Ratings of Sign Translucency & Gloss Concreteness of Two Grammatical Classes of Signs

Three hundred eighty sign/glosses of two grammatical word classes were rated for sign translucency and were compared to referent ratings made earlier on concreteness. The ratings revealed that verbs were rated significantly more translucent than nouns but less concrete than nouns. In terms of differences in concreteness and translucency within sign/glosses, verbs tended to be rated similarly for both variables, while individual nouns were rated higher in concreteness. Analysis of the rating categories for nouns and verbs indicated that the lower the rated translucency level of nouns and verbs, the greater the probability of differences between translucency and concreteness ratings. For levels of concreteness, differences in ratings between concreteness and translucency were greater for high concrete and low concrete words than for words of intermediate concreteness. Implications for teaching of signing to language-impaired individuals are discussed.