Fingerspelt acronyms in Australasia

[Adam Schembri]

>The use of acronym is a very strong aspect of American culture and
>is not as strong in other English speaking cultures (ie Australia, New
Zealand
>and England). It is true that American Deaf tend to fingerspell a lot.
As a
>Deaf foreigner living in the US I have trouble when Deaf tend to
fingerspell
>out a word for which I have a sign for in my native sign language (New
Zealand
>Sign Language).

I think you have raised an interesting point here, but I'm afraid I have
to disagree with your claims about signed language in Australia.
Acronyms are widely used in the Australian signing community. We don't
have research on this, but anecdotally deaf Australians report that the
use of fingerspelling appears to be similar in North America (i.e. ASL
signing parts of US and Canada) and Australia, although they notice that
fingerspelling appears to be used far less by many New Zealand signers,
despite the fact that Auslan and NZSL are closely related signed
languages (both might almost be considered varieties of the same signed
language as BSL, although non-core vocabulary differs significantly). A
deaf co-researcher during a recent visit to NZ was asked to avoid the
use of fingerspelling in his presentations to NZSL tutors, despite the
fact the two-handed alphabet is used in both countries! This request has
not been made of him during visits to the UK. This appears to be an
interesting difference between the two deaf communities, although it
would be nice to have some comparative data (rather than simply
anecdotes) that documented this a little better.

> The Deaf do the same thing when asked about their language they just
use
>their sign for "Sign" or "Gesture". They don't use the sign for
"language".
>That was added later when the Deaf community became more linguistically
aware
>of the fact that sign is a language.

You may find that this has been the case in most deaf communities.
Before the term "Auslan", deaf people here refered to their language as
"deaf sign" etc, but "Auslan" appears to have been widely adopted now.
It is sometimes fingerspelt, although signs previously meaning "to chat
in sign" or "to sign very fluently" have also come to be used as the
name of the language itself, as a signed equivalent of the English word
"Auslan".

>The acronym NZSL is
>not used much except for N-Z SIGN LANGUAGE or  the new sign is used. In
fact
>signing N-Z-S-L would be a little cumbersome with a two handed
fingerspelling
>alphabet.

I'm not sure what you mean about fingerspelling N-Z-S-L: it's not at all
cumbersome to fingerspell with the two-handed manual alphabet! I don't
believe that there's any difference between one- and two-handed
alphabets with regards to ease of articulation, although any
fingerspelling system is difficult if you're not used to it.

> The real question is is using an acronymn useful ? is it neccessary?
It may
>fit American culture but does it fit other cultures (ie the way other
cultures
>describe and talk about things).

I feel that acronyms are a common feature of many varieties of English
(not just North American). What evidence do you have to support your
claim that they are more typical of some English-speaking cultures than
others? Certainly, there may be a difference between NZ and other
signing communities in this regard, but perhaps not in the use of
English. As I am writing in English, then I will continue to use
acronyms to refer to the names of signed languages, except where some
alternative, non-acronymic form (such as "Auslan") has been adopted in a
particular signing community. In written English, "NZSL" appears to
widely used in the sign linguistics literature, so I will continue to
use this term. I don't see any reason to drop the use of acronyms and
abbreviations such as these.


Adam Schembri

_____________________________________________________________

Adam Schembri
Renwick College
Private Bag 29
Parramatta NSW
2124 AUSTRALIA
Ph (voice/TTY): (61 2) 9872 0303
Fax: (61 2) 9873 1614




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