"Accent" & Nortel

[Adam Schembri]

Tane,

Yes, I believe you're right about ASL borrowings in Auslan. Many ASL signs
have been "nativised" into the language, and there are characteristic
alterations to signs made with the one-handed manual alphabet "T" (which is
usually made with the thumb under the index finger) and "P" (which sometimes
looks more like a "V").

Would be interested in hearing more about your observations of these
differences when you're in Sydney.

Adam Schembri


>From: Tane Akamatsu <tanea at IBM.NET>
>Reply-To: "For the discussion of linguistics and signed languages."
>      <SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
>To: SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
>Subject: Re: "Accent" & Nortel
>Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 09:54:44 -0500
>
>Apropos of Bencie's comment:
>
> > 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.
>
>More anecdotal evidence for accent:
>
>When I was in Australia at a conference for deaf educators for a week a
>few years ago, and had plenty of time to watch/hear English/Auslan.  I
>noticed that Auslan had borrowed several signs from ASL (primarily
>initialized signs such as TC (total communication), PROGRAM (or maybe I
>should say PROGRAMME?), CLASS and several others that I can't remember
>right now), and changed the phonology to match Auslan phonology.  I make
>this claim because the signs, though recognizable as ASL signs, looked
>"funny" to me.  Either the handshapes had changed, in the case of CLASS
>-- from the double American C-hand to the double Australian C-hand -- or
>the movement was different, in the case of PROGRAM, but I can't remember
>how, exactly.    I'm going back to Australia this summer/winter for the
>International Congress on Education of the Deaf, so maybe I'll keep a
>closer watch on the Auslan signing.
>
>Maybe as others of you also attend the sign linguistics conference in
>Europe, you can watch for accent there too?
>
>Tane Akamatsu

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