Fwd: sign language lingua franca

[Nancy Frishberg]

FYI:  Here's what I wrote in response to the query on Linguist List.

Repeating Mark Mandel's advice:  Don't reply to me either.  Steven
Schaufele <fcosw5 at mail.scu.edu.tw> is NOT a subscriber to SLLING-L
(yet).

   NancyF

>Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 08:28:13 -0800
>To: <fcosw5 at mail.scu.edu.tw>
>From: Nancy Frishberg <nancyf at fishbird.com>
>Subject: sign language lingua franca
>Cc:
>Bcc:
>X-Attachments:
>
>Steven,
>
>Preface: there is a Sign Language Linguistics list from which you
>will probably get a lot of responses (as soon as I or Mark Mandel
>cross-post the query), to which your friend may wish to subscribe
>(via the usual listserv incantations):
>
>"For the discussion of linguistics and signed languages."
><SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
>
>To the question:  there is both an international lingua franca and a
>lot of ad hoc pidgin formation.
>
>GESTUNO is moderately codified for use in deliberative bodies, such
>as the World Federation of the Deaf or the international sports
>organizations among the leadership.  This form uses much borrowing
>from the European sign languages and some from ASL (in the US).
>There are short courses for interpreters who may need to work in
>these meetings, translating between a national sign language and the
>international for the occasional presenter or participant, and for
>hearing non-signers.
>
>However, when deaf people meet in organized or informal encounters
>(international conferences, sports events, tourism, immigration,
>etc.), they negotiate their communication for these occasions.  The
>fact that both parties can count on the other to have some
>familiarity with the use of physical signing space to inform the
>grammar, and conventionalized ways of encoding reality goes a long
>way to help create impromptu and effective pidgins.  The successful
>negotiations are a wonder to behold.  The extremely unsuccessful are
>the stuff of law suits (for which I've been an interpreter on
>occasion).
>
>The distinction between sign languages and mime has been a subject
>of discussion for the 30 years I've been involved in sign language
>studies.
>
>There have been some experimental studies of intelligibility of sign
>languages by signers who do not share one another's languages (two
>articles, Battison & Jordan and Jordan & Battison in Sign Language
>Studies 10 (1976), following on the 1976 World Federation meetings
>in Washington, D.C. plus other work subsequently by other authors).
>
>Others have looked at this situation from different angles.  Ted
>Supalla from the University of Rochester has worked on this problem.
>
>Look to the International Bibliography of Sign Language for further references
>http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/bibweb/
>
>At 5:03 PM +0000 12/6/01, LINGUIST List wrote:
>>Date:  Thu, 6 Dec 2001 14:50:20 +0800
>>From:  "fcosw5" <fcosw5 at mail.scu.edu.tw>
>>Subject:  sign language lingua franca
>>
>>
>>A student of mine has asked if there is any international lingua
>>franca within the deaf community, as English currently serves among
>>the hearing?  When deaf people from a variety of countries encounter
>>each other, is there some more-or-less agreed-upon language they can
>>use to communicate with each other?
>>
>>Best,
>>Steven
>>
>>Steven Schaufele
>>Asst. Prof. Linguistics,
>>English Department, Soochow University
>>Taipei 11118, Taiwan, ROC
>
>--
>
>Nancy Frishberg  +1 650.556.1948  nancyf at fishbird.com


--
Nancy Frishberg  +1 650.556.1948  nancyf at fishbird.com
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