<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">This might be valid if you are comparing signed languages to English, but there are lots of spoken languages whose grammars bear striking resemblances to things that we find in signed languages, and studying those languages in comparison with different signed languages (they're not all the same, you know) can provide interesting ways of looking at signed languages. True, the expression of a particular grammatical form may be different due to the channel of communication, but that simply attests to the flexibility of the human mind. That said, I and others have written that signed languages force us to face issues that too often have been swept under the rug in dealing with spoken languages, such as variation and the importance of the discourse level of grammar. One of the reasons I study signed languages is the insights and perspectives they pro
vide abo
n class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> as a human cognitive phenomenon. </span></b><div><br></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Susan Walker's contribution is right on the money.</span></b><div>SDF<br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collap
se: sepa
0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div>Susan D. Fischer</div><div><a href="mailto:Susan.Fischer@rit.edu">Susan.Fischer@rit.edu</a></div><div>+1-858-952-3447 (mobile)</div><div>drword563 (Skype)</div><div>drword354 (iChat/AIM)</div><div>+1-714-908-9824 (fax)</div><div>563 Orchid Lane</div><div>Del Mar, CA 92014</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>Center for Research on Language</div><div>UCSD</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></div></span> </div><br><div><div>On Mar 28, 2009, at 6:59 AM, Patricia Raswant wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote ty
pe="cite
corrected. Yes, I agree that the modality of all<br>languages have the same function--to express and to communicate. What<br>I have in mind is the delivery of a signed language and a spoken<br>language is divergent. Rather, I usually look for the closest<br>equivalents in translations since most of the languages, IMHO, are<br>impossible to compare due to cultural differences and so forth. For<br>me, how is it possible to compare an aural language to a visual<br>language?<br><br>Now, considering the directional verb in ASL, depending on how it is<br>expressed, it can be SVO or a combination of a action verb and a<br>preposition phrase. It has an inflection when a continuing verb is<br>being used. And I can argue that this is a unique structure and can't<br>be compared to a spoken language. We should accept it for what it is.<br><br>On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 11:38 PM, S Walker <<a href="mailto:swalker29@gmail.com">swalker29@gmail.com<
/a>>
e="cite">On Mar 27, 2009, at 11:24 PM, Patricia Raswant wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">...I am sure that even you<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">agree that the functions of signed languages and spoken languages are<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">very different...<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">A language is a language regardless of modality. Therefore *ALL* languages<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">have the exact same functions. [I googled the "function of language" and<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">got<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">110,000,000 pages if anyone wants to know what the "functions" of languages<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">are. Here ar
e 6 that
ral locations: "(1)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">referential<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">("The Earth is round"), (2) emotive ("Yuck!"), (3) conative ("Come here"),<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(4) phatic ("Hello?"), (5) metalingual ("What do you mean by 'krill'?"), and<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(6) poetic ("Smurf")."]<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">- Susan [retired from teaching, not retired from linguistics] :-)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SLLING-L mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a><br></blockquo
te><bloc
blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><br>_______________________________________________<br>SLLING-L mailing list<br><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br>http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>