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What Is a Sign Language?

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What Is a Sign Language? What is a Sign Language? The status of Sign Languages Introduction to Sign Language Linguistics ("2) GIANNI CONTRACT SIGN NEG_YET! Carlo Geraci ‘Gianni has not signed the contract yet’ Institut Jean-Nicod, Department of Cognitive Studies ENS, CNRS, PSL University, !1 !2 Sign Languages: the definition Sign Languages: four key points “Sign languages (alternatively, signed languages) are human languages whose forms consist of sequences of movements and configurations a. Human languages of the hands and arms, face, and upper torso. Typically, sign languages are perceived through the visual mode. Sign languages thus b. They are perceived through the visual modality contrast, of course, with spoken languages, whose forms consist of c. They are composed by:! sounds produced by sequences of movements and configurations of the mouth and vocal tract. More informally, then, sign languages are ‣ Movements! visual-gestural languages, whereas spoken languages are auditory- ‣ Handshapes! vocal languages. […]” ! ‣ Facial expressions! ‣ Positioning of the upper part of the body! (Newport & Supalla, 1999. Sign Languages, MIT Encyclopedia on Cognitive Science. MIT Press, pp. 758-760) (emphases mine)! d. They are mainly used in Deaf Communities !3 !4 What do we expect to find? Roadmap of the lecture The nature of sign language! The definition and the characterizations just proposed for sign languages raise a non trivial question:! $ Urban legends about sign language! ‣ Are sign languages really similar to spoken languages, apart from the modality used?! $ Sign Language in the brain ‣ Or sign languages are radically di#erent from spoken languages once we start looking at their internal organization and the underlying psychological mechanisms? !5 !6 Sign Language and Urban legends Sign language is NOT universal DanSL Old BSL Old LSF IceSL BSL ASL CzSL LSF ‣ Sign language is universal RSL LIS SwSL NZSL ‣ Sign language is made up by iconic gestures! DGS OGS EstSL ‣ The grammar of sign language depends on the grammar of the LithSL spoken language! UkSL PJM ‣ Sign language is poor when compared to spoken languages CSL TSL JSL LSE Port.SL HKSL LIBRAS Ethnologue of World’s Languages !7 !8 A forest of trees Sign Language and Urban legends ‣ Sign language is universal! LIS LSF/ASL ‣ Sign language is made up by iconic gestures ‣ The grammar of sign language depends on the grammar of the spoken language! ‣ Sign language is poor when compared to spoken languages LSE AUSLAN !9 !10 LIS Form ≠ Meaning & Meaning ≠ Form Iconicity & Sign Language house maison casa σπίτι Given the visual-gestural modality of expression, one could think It is a non-trivial property of human that, actually, sign languages might show a high degree of iconicity.! languages that there is no systematic iconic connection between the lexicon of a Indeed, for some signs it is quite easy to establish a direct language and the elements referred to by connection with the object they refer to. However, in some other its lexicon (putting aside onomatopoeia).! cases this connection is far from obvious or non existent at all.! Can we say the same thing for Sign Let’s have a look to some examples from French Sign Language Languages? (LSF). !11 !12 HOUSE !13 !14 TO_DRINK !15 !16 TO_DRIVE !17 !18 DEAD !19 !20 SHIT !21 !22 YELLOW !23 !24 DOG !25 !26 GRAMMAR !27 !28 What shall we conclude? Are these signs iconic? ‣ Although for some signs we can somehow come up with something close to the meaning of the word, this is not true for all of them.! ‣ Furthermore, for many signs, we are able to establish a “form- LIS LSF/ASL meaning” connection only after we know the meaning!! ‣ Not all the signs of a sign language are iconic. In many cases we are not able to connect the shape of a sign with its meaning (i.e. the link between a form and a meaning is arbitrary).! This is not enough… LSE AUSLAN !29 !30 LIS Iconicity and arbitrariness (i) Iconicity and arbitrariness (ii) $ However, signers of LIS cannot use the LSF/ASL sign to refer to a ‘tree’ and LSF/ASL signers cannot use the LIS sign when they want to point out a tree!! This means that even for those cases in which iconicity might Global shape Tree Trunk $ play some role, the final choice is the result of a linguistic convention among the signers of a community.! $ Just as in spoken languages the relationship between the words of a language and their meaning is part of the conventions of a specific language, in sign languages as well the relationship Even for iconic signs, we can show that the link between the between signs and their meaning is conventional. meaning and the form is conventional. !31 !32 Pantomime and sign language Panthomime $ As a side note: People often think that SLs are much like a pantomime and nothing more than that. In this course we are going to see and analyze SL examples which look like pantomime. ! $ However, while pantomime does not seem to have any specific constraint, sign languages are quite restricted in what is allowed and what is not allowed. !33 !34 Story telling in Sign language Pantomime and sign language ‣ Universal constraints: pantomime may use all body parts and gestures can be produced in lower than the torso. This is not true of SLs: signs cannot be articulated in the space below the level of the torso.! ‣ Language specific constraints: while doing pantomime hands may take any shape, each SL has its own repertoire of handshapes (e.g. 9, j handshapes are possible in ASL but not in LIS) !35 !36 Sign Language and Urban legends Order in Italian and LIS: Object ‣ Sign language is universal! ‣ Sign language is made up by iconic gestures! ‣ The grammar of sign language depends on the grammar of the spoken language ‣ Sign language is poor when compared to spoken languages (3) a. GIANNI COFFEE ORDER ‘Gianni has ordered a co#ee’! b. Gianni ha ordinato il caffè !37 !38 Order in Italian and LIS: modals Order in Italian and LIS: negation (4) a. GIANNI CONTRACT SIGN CAN ‘Gianni can sign the contract’! (5) a. GIANNI CONTRACT SIGN CAN NEG ‘Gianni cannot sign the contract’! b. Gianni può firmare il contratto b. Gianni non può firmare il contratto !39 !40 Two languages, two grammars Sign Language and Urban legends The order of LIS is that of an head-final language ‣ Subject > Object > Verb > Modal > Negation The order of Italian is that of an head-initial! ‣ Sign language is universal! ‣ Subject > Negation > Modal > Verb > Object ‣ Sign language is made up by iconic gestures! ‣ The grammar of sign language depends on the grammar of the spoken language! However, it is also true that contact phenomena exist. This is what is normally found in every sociolinguistic situation in which there is a ‣ Sign language is poor when compared to spoken languages dominant language (e.g. Italian) and a minority language (e.g. all the Italian dialects, including the germans and albanian ones and of course LIS) !41 !42 Are sign languages poor languages? Signs for abstract concepts People often think that sign languages are poor because: ! $ No abstraction: The visual gestural modality (and the iconic properties connected to it) does not allow to develop terms for abstract concepts; ! $ Poor lexicon: They do not have corresponding signs for all words of a language, especially when technical terms are considered;! $ Poor grammar: The grammar is not as sophisticated as that of spoken languages! FYI, all these argument have been raised during the past legislation by several representatives of the Italian Parliament to oppose the recognition of Italian sign language as the language of the Italian Deaf (6) a. LUCKY% b. GRAMMAR Community !43 !44 Not enough signs? The lexicon for new technology It is true that the lexicon of many (but not all) sign languages is English Italian LIS normally not so specialized to cover all jargons.! What’s the situation of language minorities?! Computer Computer ✓ $ Lack of a proper lexicon for technical jargons! E-mail / posta E-mail ✓ $ Non-standardised lexicon (i.e. a lot of regional variation)! elettronica Webcam Webcam ✓ (at least 2 variants) However, SLs seem to be much more prompt to develop new signs when needed … Mouse Mouse (*topo) ✓/ TOPO (calque) !45 !46 Simplified grammar? Roadmap of the lecture We have already discussed the case of sign/word order in LIS and Italian showing that the grammar of sign languages is independent from that of the dominant spoken language.! It will take an entire course to show that SLs have a quite sophisticated grammar, comparable to that of spoken languages at $ Urban legends about sign language! all levels:! $ Sign Language in the brain ‣ Phonology: from the phoneme to phrasal prosody! ‣ Morphology: from plural markers to verb agreement! ‣ Syntax: from sign order to syntactic movement! ‣ Semantics: from basic compositional rules to “monsters” !47 !48 Where do SLs come from? Sign Language and the brain Writing about the human predisposition to develop language, Stephen Pinker uses these words:! “[…] But I prefer the admittedly quaint term “instinct.” It conveys the idea that people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders know how to spin webs. Web-spinning was not invented by some unsung spider genius and does not depend on having had the right education or on having $ Sign languages are natural languages an aptitude for architecture or the construction trades. Rather, spiders spin that employ a visual-gestural spider webs because they have spider brains, which give them the urge modality. ! to spin and the competence to succeed. Although there are di#erences $ This raises the issue on which parts between webs and words, I will encourage you to see language in this of the brain govern their organization.
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