LL-L "Deaf culture" 2004.06.23 (12) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 23.JUN.2004 (12) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Deaf culture" [E]

>
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Deaf culture
>
> used for Shamanist devination.  Examples are ? (< ? woman + ? child)
'good',
> 'love', ? (< ? door + ? person) 'glimpse', 'dodge', 'flash by', and ? (< ?
> water + ? weak) 'drown'.  I wonder if this is similar to some signing
> methods.  It seems to me that it may be, given what you said above.

Not sure - I can't seem to relate these examples to anything I know.

> This also leads me to ask how spoken- and written-language-influenced sign
> languages are.  Do those in English-speaking communities have English
> slants, etc.?  It would seem logical to me that those in Chinese-,
> Japanese-, Korean- and Vietnamese-speaking communities would utilize
methods
> similar to Chinese writing (although Chinese characters are no longer
> officially used in Korea and Vietnam).

One example is that although BSL seems to be the sort of language where
adjectives follow the noun, it's not unusual to see people signing
adjectives before the noun. This seems to be influence from English syntax,
but you also have to take into account the fact that some deafened people
use SSE (Sign Supported English) which is just English glossed with BSL
signs really, and the existence of English structures in signed conversation
with people who haven't mastered BSL conversation doesn't mean that English
is having such an influence on BSL itself. Most deaf people use a fairly
pure form of BSL simply because mixed forms are genuinely tedious and
sometimes vague, and yet can be seen using more English-like forms when
speaking with unskilled signers.

It's not unusual to see people using English idiom in BSL as a sort of
literal translation, however. I'd say this tends to consist of the English
itself mouthed, with sign glosses to allow for the fact that the "listener"
can't hear the English words.

Having said that, BSL idiom tends to consist of single signs. For example,
phrases like "Not my problem", "I'm bored stiff", "There's none left",
"That's put me in my place" and "Long time no see" are single, conventional
and mostly abstract signs in BSL. So a knowledgable signer is hardly likely
to resort to English much for everyday idiom, because it would be relatively
tedious.

You would of course use sign-glossed English when, for example, quoting
films and books and expecting the listener to recognise the source: "Me love
you long time", "Make my day, punk" &c.

> Are there ever any sound clues outside of finger spelling (like "sounds
like
> 'fish' but is a container" = "dish" in charade fashion), or would that
make
> signing too spoken-language-dependent?

Firstly, you have to realise that deaf people can't hear - a concept that
I've noticed a lot of hearing people have difficulty grasping! Any such puns
will normally be based on lip patterns, not sounds, or they can hardly enter
into general deaf culture (though I can think of one exception - "Tesco"
which is signed as "sneeze" - is this something only a hearing person would
think of? - but "Tesco" isn't _really_ like "atchoo" - so is it something
only a deaf person would think of?).

There are some English lip-pattern based sign constructions, usually
intentionally humorous, eg "M-Spider" for "Marks and Spencer", because
"Spencer" is apt to be lipread as "spider" if there's no context.

["Marks and Spencer" and "Tesco" are Brtiish chain stores]

> What about signing among minority language speakers.  For example, is or
was
> there any sign language specific to Lowlands Saxon (Low German) speakers?
I
> expect there is not, if there ever was one, which would mean that deaf
> people of that language region are split apart by the Dutch-German
political
> border, using Dutch sign language in the west and German sign language in
> the east.

I think, historically, deaf people were overseen by the church, and sign
language boundaries have tended to be religious (eg Catholic vs Protestant)
rather than political.

> that in England, Wales, Scotland, The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands
> only one sign language is used despite diversity in spoken language.  I

Seems so. However, I wonder if Old Kentish Sign Language is only known as a
result of the large amount of research into Martha's Vineyard? Many regions
of England used to have isolated clusters of parishes like the Kentish
Weald, we maybe just didn't (or don't) hear about them.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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