Topicalization

A grammatical construction common in American Sign Language and other sign languages in which the topic of a sentence is placed first and marked by non-manual signals — typically raised eyebrows, a head tilt, and a brief pause — followed by a comment about that topic. For example, "MY BROTHER, TALL" (with topic marking on "MY BROTHER") translates to "As for my brother, he is tall." Topicalization is one of the ways ASL signals information structure without the word-order constraints of English. Accurately recognising topicalization is a significant challenge for AI-based ASL feedback and recognition tools because it requires joint analysis of manual signs and non-manual facial markers.