Chapter 10 Lecture on Sign Language

Chapter 10 Lecture on Sign Language

Learning Objectives

  • 10.1: Sign Language Communities

    • Discuss the similarities and differences between signed and spoken languages.

    • Discuss the relationship of American Sign Language (ASL) to spoken English.

    • Discuss the rise of national sign languages.

    • Discuss the usage and features of homesign and village sign language.

How Sign Languages Arise

Definition of Sign Language

  • Sign Language

    • Structured communication systems that possess all the features of spoken language.

    • Perceived visually and produced through hand movements and facial expressions.

    • The term is often reserved for specific languages like American Sign Language (ASL).

  • Signed Language

    • Expression of language in the manual-visual mode, contrasting with spoken language.

Types of Sign Languages

  • Homesign

    • A gestural communication system used for interactions with a deaf family member.

    • Often has a simple grammar and limited vocabulary.

    • Unique to each family and its usage is limited to the lifespan of the deaf person involved.

  • Village Sign Language

    • Emerges in communities with a high incidence of deafness.

    • Considered a full-fledged language used by both deaf and hearing members and passed down through generations.

  • Deaf Community Sign Language

    • Naturally emerges when unrelated deaf individuals form a community.

    • Often developed in residential schools for the deaf.

The Rise of National Sign Languages

Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL)

  • A national school for the deaf was established in 1977.

  • Homesign used by students evolved into NSL during a generational development.

  • This development was driven by children rather than adults.

Israeli Sign Language (ISL)

  • ISL reflects four generations of signers.

  • The oldest generation employs a pidgin form, while younger generations use a more developed ISL.

American Sign Language (ASL)

  • ASL is used by approximately half a million deaf and hearing individuals in the U.S. and Canada.

  • Developed at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817.

  • ASL is based on early 19th-century French Sign Language (FSL) and is not related to British Sign Language.

Signed vs. Spoken Languages

  • Both signed and spoken languages share the same underlying structures, such as duality of patterning and syntax.

  • Geographical distribution differs; for example, American and British spoken languages are mutually intelligible, but their signed counterparts are not.

  • Vocabulary and grammar between signed and spoken languages do not align.

    • Example: The English word "right" has two meanings: opposite of left, or incorrect, whereas ASL has two distinct signs for these meanings.

  • Transmission Modes:

    • Spoken Language: Oral-aural mode – transmitted from mouth to ear.

    • Signed Language: Manual-visual mode – transmitted from hand to eye.

Learning Objectives

  • 10.2: Characteristics of Signed Languages

    • Discuss the basic structure of signs in signed languages.

    • Discuss how duality of patterning works in signed languages.

    • Discuss how prosody is conveyed in signed languages.

    • Discuss the special features of signed languages afforded by their visuospatial nature.

The Structure of Signs

Basic Components of Sign Structure

  • Handshape

    • Configuration of fingers during the production of a sign.

  • Location

    • The part of the body used to produce a sign.

    • The same handshape produced in different locations can signify different signs.

  • Movement

    • Refers to the motion of a handshape within a single location or changes in handshape or location.

Examples from Nicaraguan Sign Language

  • Signs such as "I see" and "s/he sees"; "I pay" and "s/he pays" demonstrate how space is utilized to indicate the subject of action.

Duality of Patterning

  • This principle states that meaningless elements such as handshapes, locations, and movements can combine to form meaningful signs.

  • Signs function like syllables, with the rhythmic production of signs creating a sign stream.

  • Components include:

    • Handshape (manner of articulation) + location (place of articulation) = consonant

    • Movement (energetic center) = vowel.

  • Iconicity

  • This refers to the degree to which a symbol visually represents its referent, achieving greater iconicity through visual transmission despite still being arbitrary symbols.

Sign Language Prosody

  • Visual Prosody

  • Comprises facial expressions and body movements which convey an additional layer of meaning.

  • Includes the use of nonmanual markers which are conventionalized facial expressions and head movements that modify nouns and verbs or convey specific meaning.

Examples of Visual Prosody

  • Use of visual prosody to express conditional statements, wh-questions, etc.

    • Example: The signing sequence [IF GOALKEEPER HE CATCH-BALL] used in context to convey a conditional statement related to winning a game includes brow raises and head movements for emphasis.

Use of Nonmanual Markers

  • In sign language, nonmanual markers are integral in marking topics, conditionals, and phrase boundaries.

  • Example: In a signing of ASL, “IF RAIN, CANCEL” uses specific facial expressions and head movements to enhance understanding.

Language in Three Dimensions

Key Concepts

  • Signing Space

    • A three-dimensional area within the reach of the signer.

  • Referential Loci

    • Are regions of signing space that serve as referring expressions during discourse.

  • Verb Agreement

    • Incorporates movement of handshape from the subject location to the object location in the signing.

  • Verb Aspect

    • The temporal flow of an event expressed by the verb, which can be indicated by modifying the motion of the sign.

Layering

  • Layering describes how multiple morphemes can be expressed within a single sign.

  • The production of signs requires the use of large muscles in the upper limbs, which often takes more time compared to spoken language.

  • Example Composition:

    • Subject Referential Locus: “Mike”

    • Object Referential Locus: “Megan”

    • Nonmanual Marker (facial expression): “carelessly”

    • Basic Sign (handshape): “help”

    • Verb Aspect (movement): “continuous”

    • The sentence constructed: "Mike was carelessly helping Megan."

Learning Objectives

  • 10.3: Language Acquisition in Deaf Children

    • Discuss issues surrounding language acquisition by deaf children of deaf parents.

    • Discuss issues surrounding language acquisition by deaf children of hearing parents.

    • Discuss challenges faced by deaf children learning to speak and read.

Deaf Children of Deaf Parents

  • Infants exposed to signed language from birth tend to meet typical language development milestones.

  • Manual Babbling

    • Infants engage in repeated movements of hands and arms that mimic components of signed language.

  • Sign Language Advantage

    • Deaf infants can produce their first signed word earlier than their first spoken word due to the muscle control of upper limbs developing sooner than that of the vocal tract.

  • This advantage diminishes as children grow; however, speaking and signing children produce their first two-word sentences around the same developmental window (18-24 months).

Deaf Children of Hearing Parents

  • Most deaf children grow in hearing families, resulting in delayed exposure to sign language, often occurring years after birth.

  • The sign language competently used by family members typically lacks proficiency since it is not their native language.

  • Many children do not receive full exposure until they enter school, with late sign language learners often failing to achieve native sign capabilities.

  • Children manage to extract regularities from the inconsistent signing of hearing parents and often surpass their signing abilities.

Hearing Children of Deaf Parents

  • The situation mirrors that of second-generation immigrants, where children learn sign language at home and spoken language in their external environments.

  • In such contexts, code blending occurs, where signed and spoken languages are produced simultaneously.

  • Children can be categorized as either unimodal bilingual (communicating in two spoken languages) or bimodal bilingual (operating in both spoken and signed languages).

  • However, they do not exhibit the cognitive advantage noted in unimodal bilinguals.

Learning to Speak

Approaches to Deaf Education

  • Oralism

    • Emphasizes spoken language instruction.

  • Manualism

    • Emphasizes signed language instruction.

  • Speechreading

    • Involves perceiving spoken language by observing facial, lip, and tongue movements.

    • Individuals who lost their hearing after learning spoken language typically excel at speechreading, while prelingually deaf individuals find it particularly overwhelming.

Learning to Read

  • Literacy is considered an essential skill in modern society due to the vast amount of printed information.

  • Deaf students often show reading skills that are several years behind their hearing peers, with language skills generally underdeveloped.

  • A notable barrier is the lack of phonological awareness, as ASL and English possess different grammatical structures and vocabularies.

  • Fingerspelling

    • A method for representing letters of the alphabet with hand gestures.

    • Stages in learning to fingerspell involve:

    1. Recognizing individual letters.

    2. Progressing to recognizing words in fluent fingerspelling.

Learning Objectives

  • 10.4: Deaf Culture

    • Discuss the purposes and common themes of deaf humor.

    • Discuss storytelling in sign language.

    • Distinguish between the medical and cultural models of deafness.

    • Discuss the transmission of Deaf language and culture.

Transmission of Language and Culture

  • Culture

    • Defined as a system of learned behaviors and thought processes shared by a group.

  • Vertical Transmission

    • Language and culture learned through interactions with family and elders.

  • Horizontal Transmission

    • Language and culture learned through peer interactions.

  • Deaf Culture

    • The lowercase “deaf” refers to the medical condition associated with hearing loss, while “Deaf” (capitalized) denotes the culture surrounding sign language.

    • Both hearing and deaf individuals who utilize sign language are part of the Deaf community.

Models of Deafness

  • Medical Model

    • Views deafness as a disability that necessitates remediation or elimination.

  • Cultural Model

    • Considers deafness as a variation within the human experience, offering an alternative lived experience centered on sign language.

    • The Deaf community sees the medical model as a threat to its cultural preservation, opposing practices like genetic testing for deafness and advocating for manualism over oralism in education, viewing cochlear implants as unethical.

Cochlear Implants

  • These devices do not outright repair hearing but provide a method for representing sound.

  • The question remains: have we cured deafness?

Storytelling in Sign Language

  • Storytelling serves as a means for conveying aspects of Deaf culture and encapsulates important lessons.

  • Themes in Deaf storytelling reflect on language oppression and personal discovery regarding deafness.

Deaf Humor

  • Humor is frequently used to foster in-group cohesion by poking fun at an out-group, especially among minorities and those facing cultural oppression.

  • Jokes and humorous sign language games circulate rapidly within the Deaf community, even crossing international borders through translation into various sign languages.

  • Media such as YouTube and vlogs are pivotal in sharing Deaf stories and humor, with themes often revolving around the rejection of deafness as a disability and exploring the consequences faced by deaf individuals rejecting their Deaf identity.

  • Tensions between Deaf and hearing worlds are similarly addressed through humor.