Sign Language Linguistics 318

Chapter one: sign languages as
natural languages
Introduction
 SL have grammar
 Not one universal SL
 SL emerges where there is deaf community
 SL not derived from spoken lang
 Gestural theory of lang origin= SL first form of communic

Language in space
Visual-spatial language
Signing space → in front of top half of body and around the head
Citation form= the way that signs are produced with no context

Parameters
1. Location
2. Handshape
3. Movement
4. Orientation
5. *Non-manual components
 Mouthing: Based on spoken word
 Mouth gesture: not related to spoken lang

Compositionality: basic form elements combine to form signs which form sentences

Deaf communities
 Homesign= communication between deaf child and hearing family members
 little or no grammar
 SL often have beginning in schools
 Village sign language or rural sign language = when considerable amount of deaf
people in community (example: Adamorobe SL)
 Prelingually deaf= born deaf or become deaf within first year

, Relationship between signed and spoken language
 Sign system / manually coded sign = when spoken language is directly translated into
sign.
Visual form of a spoken language.
 Follows grammatical rules of spoken language
 Form of relexification of the spoken lang
 Often used for teaching purposes
 SL are natural languages but manually coded are not

Sign languages Sign systems
Natural languages Not natural languages
Not derived from spoken lang but have own Derived from spoken lang: take grammar
lexicon and grammar from spoken lang and insert lexical
elements of sign lang in combination with
invented signs
First language of prelingually deaf people Visually support spoken lang. used in
teaching or in communication when hearing
ppl don’t sign well
 Fingerspelling used to communicate about concept, object or person that isn’t a sign
for
 Influence of spoken lang seen in fingerspelling

Gestures

 Used in spoken lang.
 Example: thumbs up=good
 Sometimes culturally specific
 Index sign
 Used in all SLs
 Point with index finger or whole hand
 Different grammatical functions in SLs

Sign language and linguistics universality
 In spoken lang look for properties in common= linguistic universality
 Q if SL share universals with spoken lang or if there is modality-specific universals
 SL combined simultaneously in terms of parameters while spoken lang is sequentially

, Signs combined in sequences to form sentences like words combined
 Can express negative statement, ask a Q and issue an order
 Also present in SL
 All SLs make use of signing space for grammatical purposes
 This is a good candidate for a universal specific to the visual-spatial modality

Difference between sign languages
 SL only recently being studied  too soon to make claims of SL specific universals
 Great variation in the LEXICON
 Example: baby is iconic  might expect to be universal but can’t be
sure
[iconicity= shows clear relationship between form and meaning]
 Iconicity itself does not necessarily mean that sign will have same
form in different SLs
 Lexicon is culturally determined and therefore varies
 If arbitrary sign is similar in form & meaning then it is likely that there has been some
form of language contact [or due to common historical source]
 Variation in if one hand or both hands used
 SLs also differ in the FORMS THEY USE
 Different handshapes labelled according to manual alphabet
 Variation in SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE
 Forms used for different grammatical functions may vary
 Order of signs within sentence may be subject to cross-linguistic variation
 Similar= do not have a copula such as “is” { MARY CLEVER }
 But not a modality specific universal because some spoken langs behave
similarly

Transcribing Sign Languages
 Have been attempts at creating a sign writing system but not systematically used in
every country
 For research purposes a few notation systems have been developed  too complex
and detailed for daily use
 HamNoSys or KOMVA

,  Berkeley Transcription System
 Glosses used to transcribe => only provide info about meaning of sign not the form
(only an approximation)
 Taken from spoken lang
 Not a perfect translation – does not depict full range of meaning
 Handshapes
 Often labelled according to specific role that they play in manual alphabet
 Example: C-hand
 Difficult because it varies in different SLs and
 Also difficult because SLs use elements not articulated with the hands
Non-manual markers:
Non-manual markers shown by use of a line above the gloss and then
explained above line (example: neg=negation – shaking head)
_____________neg

MARY INDEX3a

→ Length of the line indicates which signs are accompanied by the marker
→ Abbreviation indicates function of the component


/boy/
BOY
→ Indicates that mouthing articulated at same time as sign
→ Silent => if it was spoken would say [+voice]


INDEX3a
→ 3a: indicates that the indexical sign is pointing towards an area of signing
space located to the side of the signer
→ By using after sign MARY: this sign is localised in space and this location
can be used later in discourse = LOCALIZATION
→ INDEX 1 = refer to signer or self , INDEX2= refer to addressee
→ Use 3a for localization of one sign and 3b for the other. For example with
INGE INDEX3a and BOY INDEX3b, Inge will be positioned on one side and
boy on the other.