"Accent" & Nortel

[Bencie Woll]

On the Nortel issue, I must make the observation that it's absurd
that the only people able to comment on the signing used in the
Nortel advert are people living in countries where the advert hasn't
been shown.

It's also somewhat striking that the initial comments about the
advert seemed to represent a reflexive view that if the signing
didn't look like ASL, it was somehow 'wrong'. I think if hearing
people saw an advert in which people were speaking something
unintelligible, the assumption would be that they were using a
foreign spoken language, not that they were speaking 'wrong' English.
One often sees adverts on TV that want to stress their
internationalism (such as McDonalds) where people are shown speaking
foreign languages. This point is of course independent from whether
the BSL used in the advert is correct BSL.

A 'V' handshape sign for VOICE has been reported to me by individuals
from two universities with Deaf Studies departments in the UK - this
may reflect my earlier comment that borrowing from ASL to BSL seems
to occur predominantly in semantic field associated with linguistics.

As to 'accent'. I think the term is not used in any formal way when
referring to e.g. a 'Scottish accent' in BSL. However, let me
contribute two entirely anecdotal and unsubstantiated observations.

When BSL signers parody ASL signers, they often produce two-handed
symmetrical  'signs' moving in space with lots of 'flicking'
movements of the fingers, just as English speakers can imitate
French speakers, or American speakers of English can imitate British
English.

The other observation is that middle-aged female signers often
produce '5' handshapes as slightly curved 'B' handshapes (I sometimes
think of them as 'paws'). I do not know how widespread this is, but
it might be considered as a form of social accent.

Professor Bencie Woll
Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies
Language and Communication Science
City University
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB

Tel: +44 (0)207 7477 8354
Minicom/TTY: +44 (0)207 7477 8314
Fax: +44 (0)207 7477 8577
e-mail: b.woll at city.ac.uk