10 Signed language

Learning Objectives for Signed Languages

  • 10.1: Sign Language Communities
      - Discuss the similarities and differences between signed and spoken languages.
      - Discuss the relationship of American Sign Language to spoken English.
      - Discuss the rise of national sign languages.
      - Discuss the usage and features of homesign and village sign language.   

  • 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 capabilities.

  • 10.3: Language Acquisition in Deaf Children
      - Discuss the issues surrounding language acquisition by deaf children of deaf parents.
      - Discuss the issues surrounding language acquisition by deaf children of hearing parents.
      - Discuss the issues surrounding language acquisition by hearing children of deaf parents.
      - Discuss the challenges deaf children have in learning to speak and read.

  • 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.

How Sign Languages Arise

Definition

  • Sign Language: Structured communication systems with all features of spoken language, perceived visually and produced through hand movements and facial expressions.

  • Signed Language: Expression of language in a manual-visual mode, differentiated from spoken language.

Types of Sign Languages

  • Homesign:   - A gestural communication system developed within families to interact with a deaf family member.   - Pidgin: A simplified grammatical structure with limited vocabulary unique to the family and typically only used during the lifespan of the deaf individual.

  • Village Sign Language:
      - Emerges in communities with a high incidence of deafness.   - Functions as a full-fledged language used by both deaf and hearing members of the community, passed down through generations.   

  • Deaf Community Sign Language:
      - Naturally develops whenever unrelated deaf individuals come together to form a community, often in residential schools for the deaf.

The Rise of National Sign Languages

Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL)

  • Established with the creation of a national school for the deaf in 1977.

  • Evolved from the homesign of students and developed primarily by children rather than adults.

Israeli Sign Language (ISL)

  • Developed across four generations, the oldest using a pidgin form while the younger generations utilize a more fully developed form of ISL.

American Sign Language (ASL)

  • Utilized 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 and based on early 19th-century French Sign Language (FSL).

  • ASL is not related to British Sign Language.

Signed vs. Spoken Languages

  • Both signed and spoken languages share the same underlying structure, including duality of patterning and syntax.

  • However, they do not share the same geographical distribution.   - Example: American and British spoken languages are mutually intelligible, but their signed languages (ASL and BSL) are not.

  • Vocabulary and grammar differ significantly between the two forms of communication.
      - For instance, the English word "right" has two meanings, whereas ASL represents these meanings with two different signs.

Modes of Transmission

  • Spoken Language: Utilizes an oral-aural mode with transmission from mouth to ear.

  • Signed Language: Utilizes a manual-visual mode with transmission from hand to eye.

The Structure of Signs

Basic Components

  1. Handshape: Configuration of fingers during the sign.

  2. Location: The part of the body where the sign is produced.    - Same handshape in different locations yields different signs.

  3. Movement: The motion of handshape within a location; changes in handshape or location create different meanings.

Duality of Patterning

  • Combines meaningless handshapes, locations, and movements to create meaningful signs, akin to how sounds form syllables in spoken languages.

  • Components of signs can express complex ideas within the rhythmic pattern of sign language production.

Iconicity in Sign Language

  • Refers to the degree a sign symbolically represents its referent. Visual transmission increases iconicity, though signs remain arbitrary symbols.

Sign Language Prosody

Visual Prosody

  • Utilizes facial expressions and body movements to convey extra layers of meaning.

  • Includes conditional statements (e.g., "If…") and wh-questions (e.g., "many… how many").

Nonmanual Markers

  • These are conventionalized facial expressions and head movements that provide specific meanings or modify nouns and verbs in translation or conversation.

Examples of Prosody

  1. Israeli Sign Language: Visual prosody illustrated through a signer explaining hypothetical scenarios using head movements and expressions to enhance the narrative.

  2. ASL: Use of nonmanuals to define sentence structure, such as marking topics and conditionals, exemplified in the phrase:    - "If it rains, it will be cancelled."

Language in Three Dimensions

Concepts

  1. Signing Space: The three-dimensional area within the signer's reach in front of them.

  2. Referential Loci: Regions within signing space used as referring expressions during discourse.

  3. Verb Agreement: Incorporating referential loci when signing verbs, which reflects the subject-object relationship.

  4. Verb Aspect: Temporal flow indicated by the motions of signs.

Layering of Signs

  • Expression of multiple morphemes within a single sign increases efficiency; for example, signs can express subjects, references, actions, and emotional state simultaneously.

Language Acquisition in Deaf Children

Deaf Children of Deaf Parents

  • Infants exposed to signed language from birth achieve typical language developmental milestones, including manual babbling and the production of signed words earlier than spoken words.   - The muscle control of upper limbs develops sooner than that of the vocal tract.

  • Notably, the advantage in producing signed words diminishes, as both speaking and signing children produce their first two-word sentences around 18-24 months.

Deaf Children of Hearing Parents

  • Many deaf children are born to hearing families and may not be exposed to sign language until several years old.   - Family members may use insufficient or inconsistent sign language.

  • This situation parallels that of children raised by pidgin-speaking parents, leading to delayed development in their signing ability, especially if they are late learners of sign language.  

Hearing Children of Deaf Parents

  • These children often navigate two worlds: sign language at home and spoken language outside, leading to unique bilingual experiences.   - May face cognitive advantages in unimodal bilingual contexts rather than bimodal bilingualism.

Learning to Speak

Approaches in Deaf Education

  • Oralism: Focus on teaching spoken language exclusively.

  • Manualism: Advocates for sign language instruction.

Speechreading and Its Challenges

  • Speechreading enables understanding of spoken language via visual cues from face, lips, and tongue movements.   - Challenges arise for adults who lost hearing after acquiring spoken language; prelingually deaf individuals struggle with this method.

Cochlear Implants

  • While helpful, cochlear implants do not restore normal hearing. Their effectiveness is significantly increased if implanted before the age of two.

  • Intensive training often required in conjunction with implants to achieve proficient speech production.

Learning to Read

Importance of Literacy

  • Reading is critical for engagement in modern society, yet literacy rates among deaf students lag behind peers due to underdeveloped language skills.

  • The differences in grammar and vocabulary between ASL and English hinder fluency in reading and writing.   

Fingerspelling

  • A method of representing letters visually with hand gestures, structured in two stages:   1. Recognition of individual letters.   2. Recognition of complete words through fingerspelling.

Deaf Culture

Transmission of Language and Culture

  • Culture: Learned behaviors and thought processes within a group.   - Vertical: Passed through familial and elder interactions.   - Horizontal: Engaged through peer interactions.   - Deaf culture recognizes those who use sign language, inclusive of both deaf and hearing individuals in the community.

Models of Deafness

  • Medical Model: Views deafness as a disability needing remediation, often seen as a threat to cultural identity.

  • Cultural Model: Recognizes deafness as a norm within human variation, advocating for sign language use and opposing genetic testing.  

Storytelling and Humor in Deaf Culture

  • Storytelling serves as a medium to convey cultural lessons and experiences, dividing people by their ability to sign.

  • Humor fosters solidarity within the Deaf community by critiquing outsiders and reflecting on shared experiences. The themes often involve themes like language oppression and identity exploration.