Sign Language Poetry: Linguistic, Historical, and Artistic Commentary Overviews and Analyses
Overview and Definitions of Sign Language Poetry
General Definition: Sign language poetry is defined as "an aesthetically purposeful distortion of standard language." The language used in poems intentionally breaks the rules of standard language to ensure the text or utterance is noticed specifically as language.
Poet Perspecitves on Sign Language Poetry: * Dot Miles: Defined poetry as "a way of putting meaning very briefly so people will see it and feel very strongly." * Clayton Valli: Described poetry as the use of "aesthetic criteria for placement of words, instead of custom." He identified "beauty of phrase, intensity of motion, and ingeniousness of technique" as the essential substance of poetry.
Linguistic Nature: Sign language poetry represents the ultimate form of aesthetic signing. The form of the language is considered as important as, or more important than, the message itself.
Succinctness and "Art" Language: Similar to spoken poetry, sign language poetry expresses ideas unusually succinctly through heightened "art" language. It employs specific linguistic devices to maximize significance, though these differ from the rhymes and alliteration found in spoken languages.
Historical and Social Context
Distinction from Prose: The Western distinction between prose and poetry is viewed as artificial and relative. Prose may contain poetic features, and poetry may resemble prose.
Storytelling vs. Poetry: Deaf communities possess strong storytelling traditions involving artistic language that informs or moves audiences. However, these did not develop into poetry until recently.
Timeline of Development: * 1960s: Most agree sign language poetry began during this decade. * 1980s or 1990s: Poetic traditions in specific sign languages were first reported.
Poetry as a Social Construction: Definitions of poetry change alongside community shifts and fashions. Current deaf artists have widely varying styles.
Recognized Poets: * Wim Emmerik: Sign Language of the Netherlands. * Rosaria and Giuseppe Giuranna: Italian Sign Language (LIS). * Patrick Graybill and Ella Mae Lenz: American Sign Language (ASL). * Paul Scott and John Wilson: British Sign Language (BSL). * Clayton Valli: American Sign Language (ASL).
Linguistic Analysis Framework: Geoffrey Leech
The Linguist's Task: Geoffrey Leech notes that discovering objective conventions in poetry is difficult because "rules are made only to be broken," and new poems often contradict previous generalizations.
Forms of Creativity: Poets use language creatively in two ways: 1. Using established possibilities of the language in a creative manner. 2. Going beyond established possibilities to create entirely new ones.
Key Aspects for Appreciation: Analysts consider three pillars: 1. Form and content of the poetic text. 2. Social and historical context (e.g., metaphors related to the deaf experience). 3. Knowledge and beliefs of the poet (personal life and shaping experiences).
Concepts of Foregrounding: Deviance and Parallelism
Foregrounding Definition: Based on the Prague school of linguistics (1950s), foregrounding occurs when poetic language deviates from or violates the norms of "ordinary" language, making the language stand out from the background.
Two Mechanisms of Foregrounding: 1. Deviance (Obtrusive Irregularity): Breaking rules of grammar or using entirely new words. * Linked to Semantics (content and what the poet has to say). 2. Parallelism (Obtrusive Regularity): Creating patterns that are "abnormally normal," such as excessive repetition of sounds (rhymes). * Linked to Phonology (expression and how the poet says it).
Summary Table of Foregrounding: * Deviance: Obtrusively irregular; creative new forms; adds significance to content; linked to semantics; examples include new words or unusual grammar. * Parallelism: Obtrusively regular; unusual repetition of established forms; adds significance to form; linked to phonology; examples include rhymes or alliteration.
Communicative Weight and Ambiguity
Communicative Weight: Language becomes unpredictable in poetry, forcing the audience to concentrate on every sign to appreciate its full significance.
Ambiguity: While avoided in everyday language, ambiguity in poetry adds meaning without adding words. In sign languages, where sign meaning is often defined by context, the scope for ambiguity is broader than in spoken languages.
Lexical Deviation (Neologisms): Sign languages are more productive in vocabulary creation than stable languages like English. Sign poetry produces striking new signs by selecting specific elements or assigning unexpected meanings.
Semantic Deviance: Occurs when the message deviates from expected meaning, often through metaphor. The surface meaning may make sense, or it may appear absurd, requiring clues for interpretation.
Parallelism in Sign Language
Structural Repetition: Unlike spoken languages, which are sequential, sign languages are simultaneous. Most signs are created using four main parameters: 1. Handshape. 2. Location. 3. Movement. 4. Palm or finger orientation.
Sub-sign Level Repetition: Parallelism occurs when signs share one, two, or three of these parameters. * Example (BSL): BUS and BLIND share handshape but not location. * Example (BSL): FISH-AS-FOOD and FIVE-POUNDS share location but differ in orientation. * Example (BSL): TREE and MIRROR share movement but differ in handshape.
Non-Parameters-Sharing Patterns: Signs may use systematic alterations, such as an increasing number of open fingers or moving across the signing space in a specific sequence.
Two-Handed Features: * Symmetry: Creating visual balance on both hands. * Simultaneity: Expressing two different signs at the same time using both hands (physically impossible in speech).
Use of Space and Rhythm
Aesthetic Use of Space: In everyday signing, space shows grammatical relationships ("who does what to whom"). In poetry, signs are held in certain areas or moved to create pleasing symmetries or highlight relationships between ideas.
Rhythm and Meter: Poetic meter is rhythmic parallelism (repetition of timing).
Dot Miles on Rhythm (1985): "If they want to make it exciting, they will have a fast rhythm. If they want it slow, boring and sleepy, they’ll have a long rhythm."
Poetic Timing: In poetry, timing is "obtrusively regular" throughout, unlike the functional timing of conversation dictated by grammar or emotion.
Sign Language Poetry as an Oral and Visual Art Form
Oral Literature: Sign languages are essentially unwritten. According to Walter Ong, only of the world's thousands of languages have a large enough body of writing to be called "literature."
Lyric Tradition: Sign language poets currently utilize the lyric tradition of short, intense poems common in oral cultures.
Performance vs. Text: In oral poetry, the text cannot be separated from the performer. The poem only exists when performed.
Personation (Dot Miles): A technique where the signer becomes the person or thing they are describing (the "close-up"). * Principle I: Clear ideas of location, size, and height relative to the signer. * Principle II: Conveying different personations through shifts in direction, posture, and gaze.
Secondary Orality: Video technology allows for the permanent recording and distribution of sign language poetry. * Heidi Rose: Argues that sign language poetry truly began with video technology.
Visual Art Appreciation (Dirksen Bauman): Sign poetry can be analyzed like painting, considering perspective, scale, size, shape, contours, outlines, and symmetry.
Perspective Manipulation: A single handshape can refer to an atom, a ball, or a planet (perspective shifts). An index finger can be a pencil, a person, a dog's tail, or part of a gesture.
Historical Analysis Frameworks
Klima and Bellugi (1970s): Identified a three-part structure: 1. Internal Structure: Choice of signs (handshape/movement), rhythm, stress, pacing. 2. External Structure: Layout of signs in space, use of both hands, and smooth transitions. 3. Superstructure: Patterns in space from overall movement and rhythmic patterns across the whole poem (often seen in translations of hymns or songs).
Other Notable Researchers: * Alec Ormsby (1995) & Clayton Valli (1993): Analyzed Valli's ASL work regarding rhyme and meter. * Marion Blondel & Chris Miller: French signed poems (rhythm and meter). * Tommaso Russo, Rosario Giuranna, & Elena Pizzuto: Italian signed poetry (visual creativity).
Analysis of "Five Senses" by Paul Scott
Themes: Empowerment of the deaf community. It confounds hearing expectations by showing that no sense is missing (Sight helps Hearing).
Repetition: * The poem is divided into stanzas marked by the dominant hand tapping fingers on the non-dominant hand. * Handshape Pattern: Transition from open '5' to closed 'A'. Successive finger extensions: thumb, index, middle (legal), ring (illegal/marked), little. The ring finger is used for the "unsustainable" sense of hearing.
Symmetry and Balance: * Russo/Pizzuto/Giuranna Study: Found two-handed symmetrical signs constitute of lectures but of poems. * Mechanism: The non-dominant hand remains active as a constant focus on the sense being discussed. * Binary Opposition: Spatial opposition (right hand for cold/unpleasant vs. left hand for hot/pleasant). * Final Stanza: Features high symmetry with signs like EYES-OPEN, INFORMATION, and LEARN.
Neologism: * of the poem is productive neologisms; only uses established lexical items. * Marks include the middle finger handshape (Smell) and the BSL '7' handshape (Sight & Hearing). * Rule-breaking: Extensions of the ring finger (illegal in BSL) represent the uncooperative hearing sense.
Performance: Personation creates a dialogue between a mature questioner and childlike, anthropomorphized senses. Gaze and scale are maintained (looking down/up to show size difference).
Analysis of "Three Queens" by Paul Scott
Themes: Historical exploration of deaf fortunes under Elizabeth I, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. * Elizabeth I: First record of sign language in Britain (1575). * Victoria: Congress of Milan (1880) and deafness in the Royal family (Prince Albert, descendants of Princess Alexandra). * Elizabeth II: Recognition of BSL as a minority language (2003).
Repetition of the number Three: * Three stanzas, three descriptions of hair (red, curls, standing up), pearls at three heights. * Sign for FLAG-FLYING appears three times; triple repetition of signs like IGNORE. * The sign WRITE is repeated six () then nine () times for the scribe.
Symmetry and Balance: * Two-handed description of necklaces (vertical and horizontal symmetries). * Balanced space in the potato vs. tobacco incidents (alternating hand dominance). * Triple Simultaneity: The finale uses both hands and the head/eyes to look up at the flag simultaneously.
Ambiguity and Morphing: * "Guessing game" with classifiers (e.g., shell/pearl and potato incidents). * Morphing: RECOGNISE sign pulls back to become the FLAG motif.
Deviance: * Fingerspelling (p-e-a-r-l, p-h-i-l-i-p-o-f-e-d-b-h) is used for clarity but is deviant in aesthetic signing. * The sign QUEEN is articulated at the wrong location (in space rather than at the head) for poetic effect.
Analysis of "Trio" by Dot Miles
Structure: A signed haiku comprised of three stanzas: Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.
Handshape Symbolism: * Morning: '5' and 'B' handshapes (openness/freshness). * Afternoon: 'G^' and 'B^' handshapes. * Evening: 'V"' and '5"' (tension/fear).
Chiming: Connection between the sign EVENING and the sign BLIND (only one parameter difference) suggests a deaf person in the dark is also blind.
Rhythmic Parallelism: Noun-verb pairs (SUN/SUN-RISES, RAIN/RAIN-DIES, WIND/WIND-DIES) share handshapes and movement patterns.
Symmetry Types: * Vertical: Used in Afternoon for signs like EAT-LOTS and SIT-BACK. * Diagonal: Dog (right side, lower) and bird (left side, higher) are mirrored proforms. * Horizontal: The sign TWIN-TREES joins elbows to create a reflection image (horizontal axis).
Neologism and Rule-Breaking: * Approximately of the poem is neologistic. * TWIN-TREES: Violates the rule against elbow-to-elbow contact. * BAT/DARKNESS-COVER-FACE: Violates the rule against covering the entire face. * Three-way Simultaneity: Poet, dog, and bird snoring/dozing simultaneously.
Metaphorical Depth: * Stages of a day as a metaphor for Youth, Middle-Age, and Old-Age. * Similes: "Sun like a flower" (fragility) and "Darkness like a bat" (fear, wrap-around wings). * Formational logic: The closing of a flower matches the closing of a light/sun sign.
Performance Elements: Recorded for BBC See Hear! using an English garden backdrop. Personation uses gaze to look at correct heights for the bird and dog and shifts from smiling (Morning) to fearful eyes (Evening).