DOCSLIB.ORG

Sign Languages and Deaf Culture

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sign Languages and Deaf Culture Sign Languages Sign languages are natural languages of the deaf, found all over the world. In contrast to popular belief there is no universal sign language invented by hearing people. On the contrary, there are hundreds of sign languages that have arisen spontaneously wherever deaf communities exist. Almost every country has its own sign language; Ethnologue’s genetic classification system distinguishes about 116 different sign languages, from Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana) to Zimbabwean Sign Language. Although sign languages are not universal language there are universal features in sign languages, which help make it possible for users of different sign languages to understand one another far more quickly than users of unrelated spoken languages can. There are also families of sign languages. ASL (American Sign Languages) and NGT (Sign Language of the Netherlands) for example, are primarily descended from French Sign Language. British Sign Language (BSL) is quite different from ASL, but not from New Zealand Sign Language, and Australian Sign Language which are daughter languages of BSL. There are also distinct Chinese, Japanese, Swedish and many other sign languages. Their distribution sometimes corresponds with the linguistic divisions of the countries in which they are found: Ireland has two sign languages: Irish Sign Language (related to French Sign Language, and used by Catholic signers) and British Sign Language (used by Protestant signers).. It has often been thought that sign languages are not real languages, but that they are either some sort of limited gesture system or pantomime or alternatively, a direct representation of the spoken language in signs. Neither is true. Sign Languages are real languages with their own grammar, not derived from the spoken language of the country in which a particular sign language is used. It is possible to use signs combined with the grammar of the spoken language, for example BSL vocabulary articulated in English word order. However this form of communication, called Signed English, is completely different from British Sign Language. It should be noted, however, that although BSL is different and independent from English, English has still influenced it. That is true of minority languages everywhere: any minority language that is surrounded by a majority language will be influenced by that majority language. The main difference between sign languages and spoken languages can be found in how the languages are perceived and produced. Spoken languages are perceived through hearing; sign languages through seeing. Spoken languages are produced orally; sign languages are produced manually. Therefore, visually based languages such as sign languages have distinctive characteristics. The basic lexical units of sign languages are signs. Signs are articulated with distinctive movements and configurations of the hands at different locations at or close to the body. The space in front of, above and at the sides of the signer is called signing space and plays an important grammatical role in sign languages. This contrasts with spoken languages where the use of space does not serve a grammatical purpose. Signing space can be used to localize objects and persons so that they can be referred to during a conversation or story, or to realize verb agreement and inflection. As well as the use of manual signs to display linguistic information, the face, head and upper body also play an important linguistic role. Facial signals and movements of the head and upper body are called non-manual signals and add important information to signs. They can be used to modify the meaning of a sign, to mark sentence types, or in role shift. ‘Deaf culture’ is defined in the same way as any other culture. Deaf people within a deaf community share a sign language and culture which underpin their identity. All around the world sign languages have their own forms of ‘word games’ or ‘sign games’, their own forms of humour, storytelling and poetry. In spoken languages poetry is constructed using effects such as rhythm and sound association. In sign language poetry parallel effects are found. These include rhythm of movement and form association (comparable to alliteration or rhyme), using patterns of hand shape, movement or location to create associations in meaning. For further information about sign languages, see the following web links and literature references. Books English Seeing Voices, by Oliver Sacks, 1989. The signs of language, by Edward Klima & Ursula Bellugi, 1979. The linguistics of British Sign Language, by Rachel Sutton-Spence & Bencie Woll, 1999. Dutch Gebarentaal. De taal van doven in Nederland, door Liesbeth Koenen, Tony Bloem, Ruud Jansen en Albert van der Ven, 1993. Meer dan een gebaar. Rapport van de Commissie Erkenning Nederlandse Gebarentaal. 1997. http://212.204.242.26/download/rapport_mdg.PDF. Web English International Bibliography of Sign Language, http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/bibweb/ British Deaf Association, http://www.britishdeafassociation.org.uk/ Swedish Deaf Association, http://www.sdrf.se/sdr/index_eng.htm Deaf Resource Library, http://deaflibrary.org International deaf / sign language links, http://members.rogers.com/signnet/DI_AG.html A good list of links (some with German descriptions), http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/Quellen/Quellen.html A large list of links to Deaf-related web sites, http://www.deafbiz.com/ Dutch Dovenschap, Dutch Deaf Organization. http://www.dovenschap.nl Nederlands Gebarencentrum, http://www.gebarencentrum.nl Swedish Sveriges Dövas Riksförbund, http://www.sdrf.se/sdr/index.htm Teckenwebben, samlingsplatsen för teckenspråk, http://www.teckenwebben.se/ Svenskt Teckenspråks-lexicon på internet, http://ling149.ling.su.se/ The ECHO project, March 2004 http://www.let.kun.nl/sign-lang/echo/.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Sign Language Typology Series
    SIGN LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY SERIES The Sign Language Typology Series is dedicated to the comparative study of sign languages around the world. Individual or collective works that systematically explore typological variation across sign languages are the focus of this series, with particular emphasis on undocumented, underdescribed and endangered sign languages. The scope of the series primarily includes cross-linguistic studies of grammatical domains across a larger or smaller sample of sign languages, but also encompasses the study of individual sign languages from a typological perspective and comparison between signed and spoken languages in terms of language modality, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to sign language typology. Interrogative and Negative Constructions in Sign Languages Edited by Ulrike Zeshan Sign Language Typology Series No. 1 / Interrogative and negative constructions in sign languages / Ulrike Zeshan (ed.) / Nijmegen: Ishara Press 2006. ISBN-10: 90-8656-001-6 ISBN-13: 978-90-8656-001-1 © Ishara Press Stichting DEF Wundtlaan 1 6525XD Nijmegen The Netherlands Fax: +31-24-3521213 email: [email protected] http://ishara.def-intl.org Cover design: Sibaji Panda Printed in the Netherlands First published 2006 Catalogue copy of this book available at Depot van Nederlandse Publicaties, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag (www.kb.nl/depot) To the deaf pioneers in developing countries who have inspired all my work Contents Preface........................................................................................................10
    [Show full text]
  • Sign Language Endangerment and Linguistic Diversity Ben Braithwaite
    RESEARCH REPORT Sign language endangerment and linguistic diversity Ben Braithwaite University of the West Indies at St. Augustine It has become increasingly clear that current threats to global linguistic diversity are not re - stricted to the loss of spoken languages. Signed languages are vulnerable to familiar patterns of language shift and the global spread of a few influential languages. But the ecologies of signed languages are also affected by genetics, social attitudes toward deafness, educational and public health policies, and a widespread modality chauvinism that views spoken languages as inherently superior or more desirable. This research report reviews what is known about sign language vi - tality and endangerment globally, and considers the responses from communities, governments, and linguists. It is striking how little attention has been paid to sign language vitality, endangerment, and re - vitalization, even as research on signed languages has occupied an increasingly prominent posi - tion in linguistic theory. It is time for linguists from a broader range of backgrounds to consider the causes, consequences, and appropriate responses to current threats to sign language diversity. In doing so, we must articulate more clearly the value of this diversity to the field of linguistics and the responsibilities the field has toward preserving it.* Keywords : language endangerment, language vitality, language documentation, signed languages 1. Introduction. Concerns about sign language endangerment are not new. Almost immediately after the invention of film, the US National Association of the Deaf began producing films to capture American Sign Language (ASL), motivated by a fear within the deaf community that their language was endangered (Schuchman 2004).
    [Show full text]
  • How Does Social Structure Shape Language Variation? a Case Study of the Kata Kolok Lexicon
    HOW DOES SOCIAL STRUCTURE SHAPE LANGUAGE VARIATION? A CASE STUDY OF THE KATA KOLOK LEXICON KATIE MUDD*1, HANNAH LUTZENBERGER2,3, CONNIE DE VOS2, PAULA FIKKERT2, ONNO CRASBORN2, BART DE BOER1 *Corresponding Author: [email protected] 1Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium 2Center of Language Studies, Nijmegen, Netherlands 3International Max Planck Research School, Nijmegen, Netherlands Sign language emergence is an excellent source of data on how language varia- tion is conditioned. Based on the context of sign language emergence, sign lan- guages can be classified as Deaf community sign languages (DCSL), used by a large and dispersed group of mainly deaf individuals (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2004) or as shared sign languages (SSL), which typically emerge in tight-knit communities and are shared by deaf and hearing community members (Kisch, 2008)1. It has been suggested that, in small, tight-knit populations, a higher degree of variation is tolerated than in large, dispersed communities because individuals can remember others’ idiolects (de Vos, 2011; Thompson et al., 2019). Confirm- ing this, Washabaugh (1986) found more lexical variation in Providence Island Sign Language, a SSL, than in American Sign Language (ASL), a DCSL. DC- SLs frequently exhibit variation influenced by schooling patterns, for instance seen in the differences between ages in British Sign Language (Stamp et al., 2014), gender in Irish Sign Language (LeMaster, 2006) and race in ASL (Mc- Caskill et al., 2011). It remains unknown how variation is conditioned in SSLs. The present study of Kata Kolok (KK) is one of the first in-depth studies of how sociolinguistic factors shape lexical variation in a SSL.
    [Show full text]
  • Signed Languages in Education in Europe – a Preliminary Exploration
    Signed Languages in Education in Europe – a preliminary exploration Lorraine LEESON PRELIMINARY STUDY Languages of Education Language Policy Division, Strasbourg www.coe.int/lang Signed Languages in Education in Europe – a preliminary exploration Lorraine LEESON, Centre for Deaf Studies, School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Science. Trinity College Dublin Intergovernmental Conference: Languages of Schooling: towards a Framework for Europe Strasbourg 16-18 October 2006 Language Policy Division The opinions expressed in this work are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Council of Europe. All correspondence concerning this publication or the reproduction or translation of all or part of the document should be addressed to the Director of School, Out of School and Higher Education of the Council of Europe (F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex). The reproduction of extracts is authorised, except for commercial purposes, on condition that the source is quoted. Language Policy Division DG IV – Directorate of School, Out-of-School and Higher Education Council of Europe, F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex Contents 1. Introduction........................................................................................6 2. The Linguistic Status of Signed Languages ....................................................7 3. Language Acquisition: Which Language is the Deaf Child’s First Language? .............7 4. Signed Languages as subjects – Approaches and implications for signed language use .......................................................................................9
    [Show full text]
  • 400 Years of Change In
    Digiti lingua: a celebration of British Sign Language and Deaf Culture Bencie Woll Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre UCL 1 Structure of this talk • Introduction to BSL: its history and social context • Historical sources • What kind of language is BSL? • Change in BSL • BSL in the future Introduction to BSL: its history and social context Some myths about sign language • There is one universal sign language • Sign language consists of iconic gestures • Sign languages were invented by hearing people to help deaf people • Sign languages have no grammar • BSL is just English on the hands Truths about sign language • There are many different sign languages in the world • Sign languages are just as conventionalised as spoken languages • Sign languages are natural languages, the creation of deaf communities • Sign languages have their own complex grammars BSL – language of the British Deaf community • An estimated 50,000-70,000 sign language people • Forms a single language group with Australian and New Zealand sign languages • Unrelated to American Sign Language or Irish Sign Language Social context of BSL • A minority language used by a community with historically low status • Non-traditional transmission patterns • Extensive regional lexical variation • A bilingual community, but with variable access to the language of the majority • Has experienced active attempts at suppression over many centuries Home sign • Gestural communication systems developed during communication between deaf children and hearing adults • Unlike sign
    [Show full text]
  • Variation and Change in English Varieties of British Sign Languagei
    Variation and change in English varieties of BSL 1 Variation and change in English varieties of British Sign Languagei Adam Schembri, Rose Stamp, Jordan Fenlon and Kearsy Cormier British Sign Language (BSL) is the language used by the deaf community in the United Kingdom. In this chapter, we describe sociolinguistic variation and change in BSL varieties in England. This will show how factors that drive sociolinguistic variation and change in both spoken and signed language communities are broadly similar. Social factors include, for example, a signer’s age group, region of origin, gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (e.g., Lucas, Valli & Bayley 2001). Linguistic factors include assimilation and co-articulation effects (e.g., Schembri et al. 2009; Fenlon et al. 2013). It should be noted, however, some factors involved in sociolinguistic variation in sign languages are distinctive. For example, phonological variation includes features, such as whether a sign is produced with one or two hands, which have no direct parallel in spoken language phonology. In addition, deaf signing communities are invariably minority communities embedded within larger majority communities whose languages are in another entirely different modality and which may have written systems, unlike sign languages. Some of the linguistic outcomes of this contact situation (such as the use of individual signs for letters to spell out written words on the hands, known as fingerspelling) are unique to such communities (Lucas & Valli 1992). This picture is further complicated by patterns of language transmission which see many deaf individuals acquiring sign languages as first languages at a much later age than hearing individuals (e.g., Cormier et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 2 Sign Language Types
    Chapter 2 Sign language types This chapter defines four different sign language types, based on the infor- mation available in the respective sources. Before introducing the types of sign languages, I first report on the diachronic developments in the field of typological sign language research that gave rise to the distinction of the various sign language types. Sign language research started about five decades ago in the United States of America mainly due to the pioneering work of Stokoe (2005 [1960]), Klima and Bellugi (1979), and Poizner, Klima and Bellugi (1987) on American Sign Language (ASL). Gradually linguists in other countries, mainly in Europe, became interested in sign language research and started analyzing European sign languages e.g. British Sign Language (BSL), Swedish Sign Language (SSL), Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and German Sign Language (DGS). Most of the in-depth linguistic descrip- tions have been based on Western sign languages. Therefore, it has long been assumed that some fundamental levels of linguistic structure, such as spatial morphology and syntax, operate identically in all sign languages. Recent studies, however, have discovered some important variations in spatial organization in some previously unknown sign languages (Washabaugh, 1986; Nyst, 2007; Marsaja, 2008; Padden, Meir, Aronoff, & Sandler, 2010). In the context of growing interest in non-Western sign languages towards the end of the 1990s and more recently, there have been efforts towards developing a typology of sign languages (Zeshan, 2004ab, 2008, 2011b; Schuit, Baker, & Pfau, 2011). Although it has been repeatedly emphasized in the literature that the sign language research still has too little data on sign languages other than those of national deaf communities, based in Western or Asian cultures (Zeshan, 2008).
    [Show full text]
  • American Sign Language
    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ∙ National Institutes of Health NIDCD Fact Sheet | Hearing and Balance American Sign Language What is American Sign Language? American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete, natural language that has the same linguistic properties as spoken languages, with grammar that differs from English. ASL is expressed by movements of the hands and face. It is the primary language of many North Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing, and is used by many hearing people as well. Is sign language the same in other countries? There is no universal sign language. Different sign languages are used in different countries or regions. For example, British Sign Language (BSL) is a different A young boy signs “I love you.” language from ASL, and Americans who know ASL may not understand BSL. Some countries adopt features of ASL in their sign languages. LSF are distinct languages. While they still contain some Where did ASL originate? similar signs, they can no longer be understood by each other’s users. No person or committee invented ASL. The exact beginnings of ASL are not clear, but some suggest that it How does ASL compare with spoken arose more than 200 years ago from the intermixing of language? local sign languages and French Sign Language (LSF, or Langue des Signes Française). Today’s ASL includes some ASL is a language completely separate and distinct elements of LSF plus the original local sign languages; from English. It contains all the fundamental features over time, these have melded and changed into a rich, of language, with its own rules for pronunciation, word complex, and mature language.
    [Show full text]
  • Enactment in British Sign Language Conversations
    SHOWING AND SEEING: ENACTMENT IN BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE CONVERSATIONS GABRIELLE HODGE*, SANNAH GULAMANI, and KEARSY CORMIER *Corresponding Author: [email protected] Deafness Cognition & Language Research Centre, University College London, UK It is widely accepted that investigations of enactment (non-conventional, improvised, bodily depictions of events) are integral for understanding the origins and evolution of language (see e.g. Żywiczyński, Wacewicz & Sibierska, 2018). However, there is significant disconnect in how enactment in spoken and signed languages is understood and analysed, which inhibits cross-modal comparability and investigation of the role of deaf signed languages in evolutionary theory. Here we take the position that both signers and speakers use non-conventional bodily enactment with and without more conventionalised semiotic strategies to mimetically depict the actions, utterances, thoughts and feelings of themselves, other people, animals and things (Tannen, 1989; Metzger 1995). Proficient use of enactment in deaf signed language ecologies is vital for understanding others and making oneself understood (see e.g. Cormier, Smith & Zwets, 2013; Ferrara & Johnston, 2014). Indeed, enactment is just one of several strategies for depicting in face-to-face communication, which are tightly integrated with strategies for describing and indicating (Clark, 1996; see also Ferrara & Hodge, 2018). However, unlike with spoken languages (e.g. Hakulinen & Selting, 2005), little is known about signed conversations, and the role of non-conventional semiotics during these interactions. One question is how signers use bodily enactment to visibly depict a referent while indexing other ‘invisible’ referents in the signing space around them. This enables signers to ‘show’ one referent with their body while simultaneously ‘seeing’ another (Winston, 1991; Engberg-Pedersen, 1993; Liddell, 2003).
    [Show full text]
  • Sign Language Variations in Kata Kolok
    e-Journal of Linguistics January 2018 Vol. 12 No. 1 P: 37-52 DOAJ Indexed (Since 15 Sep 2015) DOI.10.24843/eJL.2018.v.12.i01.p.04 e-ISSN: 2442-7586 p-ISSN: 2541-5514 https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eol/ Sign Language Variations in Kata Kolok 1Dian Rahmani Putri, STIMIK STIKOM Bali (Information System Academic Program) 2I Gusti Made Sutjaja, [email protected], 3Aron Meko Mbete, [email protected], Udayana University 4 Wayan Pastika, [email protected], Udayana University *Corresponding Author: [email protected] Received Date: 27-10-2017 Accepted Date: 06-11-2017 Published Date: 04-01-2018 Abstract— The study focuses on sign language namely kata kolok, which is naturally used in Bengkala village, Buleleng, Bali, by the local deaf community, specifically on their idea and thought to describe their religious living, customs and culture. The aim of this research is to enrich references of a sign language system contributed by sign language owned by the Kolok community in Bengkala. The data obtained is primary, qualitative; those are lexicon, expression, sentences, text in the form of sign language. The data were collected by observation, video recording and direct interviewing by using new etnography approach or cognitive anthropology. The data analysis is conducted by content analysis. In the future, this research is expected to generate a Kata Kolok Dictionary, a comprehensive documentation and effective information dedicated to the signer or the sign language user, and also as the preservation of Kata Kolok as the natural sign language. There are sign and meaning variations found, such as sign variations for the 3rd person singular pronoun, modality „have to‟, religious-signs „mabanten‟ and „Pura‟, the customs sign „ngaben‟, culture sign „tajen‟, survival sign „talking‟, and emotional expression „sad‟ and „surprised‟.
    [Show full text]
  • One Student, Two Languages: Print Literacy in Deaf Students
    ONE STUDENT, TWO LANGUAGES: PRINT LITERACY IN DEAF STUDENTS ELIZABETH BROWN Linguistics Thesis* Spring 2009 This thesis explores what constitutes bilingualism between signed and oral languages, specifically between American Sign Language (ASL) and Eng- lish. We consider the challenges deaf students face in acquiring print literacy and in doing so, evaluate what strategies are most effective in overcoming these barriers. We isolate aspects of linguistic awareness that are meaningful for acquiring bimodal bilingualism and present suggestions on how teachers can best impart the necessary knowledge to young deaf learners, determining effective ways to help deaf students achieve bilingualism through print liter- acy. The focus is on elementary-school-aged children. 1. INTRODUCTION. Bilingualism is the best language option for most deaf people living in hearing society, but it is no easy task. Print literacy is the primary meas- ure of fluency for deaf learners (Moores 2006: 50), and so acquiring reading proficiency in printed English is often the focus of deaf education. Deaf children struggle with read- ing, and the average deaf student graduating from high school has a fourth grade reading level (Hanson 1989: 71-2) or lower (Wilbur 2008: 123). A weak linguistic background in the first language and a limited access to pho- nology are common culprits in negatively affecting deaf students’ reading abilities. Lan- guage deprivation is more common among deaf children entering school than it is among hearing children (Yang 2000), and the first step in planning for print literacy is to make sure that young deaf children acquire a signed language at an early age—in the United States, this often comes in the form of ASL.
    [Show full text]
  • Sign Language Legislation
    ResearchResearch and and Information Information Service Service ResearchResearch Paper Paper 13 November 2020 Karen McCallion Sign Language Legislation NIAR 303-20 This research paper compares and contrasts recent sign language legislation passed in Ireland and Scotland with proposals for sign language legislation in Northern Ireland. Paper 77/20 13 November 2020 Research and Information Service briefings are compiled for the benefit of MLAs and their support staff. Authors are available to discuss the contents of these papers with Members and their staff but cannot advise members of the general public. We do, however, welcome written evidence that relates to our papers and this should be sent to the Research and Information Service, Northern Ireland Assembly, Room 139, Parliament Buildings, Belfast BT4 3XX or e-mailed to [email protected] NIAR 303-20 Research Paper Key Points . British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) are distinct languages, not dependent upon, nor strongly related to spoken English and Irish. There is no universal sign language. Disputes exist about the reported size of the deaf community in Northern Ireland. Some figures estimate that approximately 18,000 BSL and ISL users live in Northern Ireland, 7,500 of whom are deaf. The Health and Social Care Board reported difficulties in capturing the numbers of full time equivalent interpreters and the levels of unmet need for interpretation support in Northern Ireland (NI). Research shows that people who are deaf experience higher levels of unemployment. A higher proportion of deaf young adults are not in education, employment or training. Deaf people’s health is poorer and deaf people’s educational outcomes are poorer.
    [Show full text]