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Anastasia Bauer the Use of Signing Space in a Shared Signing Language of Australia Sign Language Typology 5

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Anastasia Bauer the Use of Signing Space in a Shared Signing Language of Australia Sign Language Typology 5 Anastasia Bauer The Use of Signing Space in a Shared Signing Language of Australia Sign Language Typology 5 Editors Marie Coppola Onno Crasborn Ulrike Zeshan Editorial board Sam Lutalo-Kiingi Irit Meir Ronice Müller de Quadros Roland Pfau Adam Schembri Gladys Tang Erin Wilkinson Jun Hui Yang De Gruyter Mouton · Ishara Press The Use of Signing Space in a Shared Sign Language of Australia by Anastasia Bauer De Gruyter Mouton · Ishara Press ISBN 978-1-61451-733-7 e-ISBN 978-1-61451-547-0 ISSN 2192-5186 e-ISSN 2192-5194 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. ” 2014 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin and Ishara Press, Lancaster, United Kingdom Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck Țȍ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Acknowledgements This book is the revised and edited version of my doctoral dissertation that I defended at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Cologne, Germany in January 2013. It is the result of many experiences I have encoun- tered from dozens of remarkable individuals who I wish to acknowledge. First of all, this study would have been simply impossible without its partici- pants. The data that form the basis of this book I owe entirely to my Yolngu family who taught me with patience and care about this wonderful Yolngu language. My deepest gratitude goes to all Yolngu people from Galiwin’ku and Mapuru who shared their language, their knowledge and their hospitality with another Balanda coming to their land. I would like to express my very great appreciation to Elaine L. Maypilama for her assistance with the collec- tion of my data. I am particularly thankful for her taking care of me during my stay in Galiwin’ku. I very much enjoyed our meals by the fire and our conversations. It gives me great pleasure in acknowledging the support and help of Roland Pfau, who has been a quiet influence on my work even before I started writing this book. I owe my sincere thanks to him, as his linguistic and writing skills have contributed so much to this book. I very much appre- ciate his willingness to give his time so generously. The research was undertaken with the financial assistance of German Research Foundation (DFG) as a part of EuroBABEL project (“Endangered Sign Languages in Village Communities”) guided by Ulrike Zeshan. During the research time, I was also fortunate to receive support from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. The Northern Land Council facilitated the acquisi- tion of the permit necessary to undertake fieldwork in Arnhem Land. I am indebted to different people in Northern Territory for helping me before, during and after the fieldwork. I would like to thank John Greatorex, Anne Lowell, Brian and Nancy Devlin, Stephen Hill, Graig Danvers, Nia Emmanouil and other great women from CERES Global for the adventurous road trip to Mapuru. I would like to acknowledge the sign language research groups at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, University of Central Lancashire and Georg-August University of Göttingen. My visits were always inspiring and stimulating and have been critical to my being able to maintain my moti- vation and enthusiasm. I am grateful to all the sign language researchers and colleagues for their support and interest in my research. I am particu- larly indebted to Inge Zwitserlood for her expertise and continuous support throughout many years. Inge, thank you for bringing me to classifiers. vi Acknowledgements I consider it an honor to have been able to discuss my research with a renowned pioneer of Australian Aboriginal sign languages, Adam Kendon. Adam, thank you very much for your valuable and constructive comments on my study. I enjoyed our long conversation in Cologne. My gratitude and thanks also go to Marie Coppola, Pamela Perniss, Victoria Nyst, Olivier Le Guen, Vadim Kimmelmann and Susanne Mohr who gave productive feedback on previous drafts of the book. I owe thanks to Irit Meir, Angela Nonaka, Connie de Vos, Jenny Green, Erin Wilkinson and Joke Schuit for their insightful comments on various sign languages. I also thank Getrud Boden, Juliane Kabisch-Lindenlaub, Anne Fehn, Nikolaus Himmelmann, Patrick McConvell, Andrew Butcher, Suzannah O’Reilly, Peter Bakker and Rolf Kuschel for providing insights into their research and thus contributing to this book. My colleagues Timo Klein and Anthony Bülow deserve my special thanks for their support and encouragement during the challenging stages of writing up this book. Timo, thank you for your invaluable technical assis- tance in preparing the illustrations. During some of the more difficult stages of my PhD studies at the University of Cologne, I wish to acknowledge the help provided by Stefan Grohé, Norbert Finzsch, Thomas Kaul and Ulrich Obst, who always provided me with a listening ear in a difficult situation. Very special thanks are owed to my German Sign Language teachers: Reiner Griebel und Christo Sailer. Thank you so much for teaching me your beau- tiful language. I am also indebted to Christo for modeling some of the DGS signs for this study. My gratitude goes to Camilo Gray and his colleagues from the Multimedia Group at the University of Cologne for their assistance with the digital archiving of the video files. I would also like to thank Claudia Hunt, Kathryn Bausch, Russell Watson, Amanda Hähn-Woods, Kelly Hähn-Hawrylyshyn for the English proof- reading. Assistance provided by the editoral assistants of SLT Series, Nicola Wright and Robin Arora was also greatly appreciated. I also thank my friends, family and God, who gave me Maxim. He was on his way during writing of this book and made me the happiest person on earth. I thank my parents-in-law, Gertrud and Hartmut, who supported me in this whole undertaking from the very beginning. Uli, words cannot express how grateful I am for your unconditional love and support. I could not have completed this book without you. Finally, I thank my mother, Valentina, who made me curious and did everything possible for me: my school education in Russia, my high school year in the USA and my master and PhD studies in Germany. Мама, я тебе бесконечно благодарна. Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................v List of figures .............................................................................................xiii List of tables ..............................................................................................xvii Abbreviations ...........................................................................................xviii Sign language acronyms ............................................................................xix Glossary .....................................................................................................xxi Notational conventions .............................................................................xxii Part I: Introduction 1 Introduction ...............................................................................................3 1.1 Research aims and objectives ...........................................................5 1.2 Outline of the book ...........................................................................7 2 Sign language types ................................................................................10 2.1 Deaf community sign languages .....................................................12 2.2 Emerging sign languages ................................................................13 2.3 Village sign languages ....................................................................15 2.3.1 Socioeconomic and demographic settings ...........................15 2.3.2 Social homogeneity ..............................................................16 2.3.3 (Socio-)Linguistic context ...................................................17 2.3.4 Degree of endangerment .....................................................18 2.4 Alternate sign languages ................................................................19 2.4.1 Sawmill Sign Language .......................................................20 viii Contents 2.4.2 Monastic sign languages ......................................................21 2.4.3 Plains Indian Sign Language ...............................................22 2.4.4 Keresan Pueblo Indian Sign Language ................................23 2.4.5 Australian Aboriginal sign languages ..................................23 2.5 Shared sign languages .....................................................................28 2.6 Summary .........................................................................................30 Part II: Sociolinguistic Background & Methodology 3 Cultural and sociolinguistic context ........................................................35 3.1 Previous studies ..............................................................................35 3.2 Historic & demographic background ..............................................37 3.3 Cultural background .......................................................................40 3.4 Linguistic context ...........................................................................41 3.5
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