"Accent" & Nortel

[Professor Des Power]

Franglais signing - I like it! And I agree with Bencie about expecting
"foreign" signing if its not known :-)

Des

Bencie Woll wrote:

> On the Nortel issue, I must make the observation that it's absurd
> that the only people able to comment on the signing used in the
> Nortel advert are people living in countries where the advert hasn't
> been shown.
>
> It's also somewhat striking that the initial comments about the
> advert seemed to represent a reflexive view that if the signing
> didn't look like ASL, it was somehow 'wrong'. I think if hearing
> people saw an advert in which people were speaking something
> unintelligible, the assumption would be that they were using a
> foreign spoken language, not that they were speaking 'wrong' English.
> One often sees adverts on TV that want to stress their
> internationalism (such as McDonalds) where people are shown speaking
> foreign languages. This point is of course independent from whether
> the BSL used in the advert is correct BSL.
>
> 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.
>
> As to 'accent'. I think the term is not used in any formal way when
> referring to e.g. a 'Scottish accent' in BSL. However, let me
> contribute two entirely anecdotal and unsubstantiated observations.
>
> When BSL signers parody ASL signers, they often produce two-handed
> symmetrical  'signs' moving in space with lots of 'flicking'
> movements of the fingers, just as English speakers can imitate
> French speakers, or American speakers of English can imitate British
> English.
>
> The other observation is that middle-aged female signers often
> produce '5' handshapes as slightly curved 'B' handshapes (I sometimes
> think of them as 'paws'). I do not know how widespread this is, but
> it might be considered as a form of social accent.
>
> Professor Bencie Woll
> Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies
> Language and Communication Science
> City University
> Northampton Square
> London EC1V 0HB
>
> Tel: +44 (0)207 7477 8354
> Minicom/TTY: +44 (0)207 7477 8314
> Fax: +44 (0)207 7477 8577
> e-mail: b.woll at city.ac.uk

--
Professor Des Power, Director
Centre for Deafness Studies and Research, and
Language Australia, Centre for Deafness and Communication  Studies
Faculty of Education
Griffith University, QLD 4111
Australia

Tel:  (617) 3875 5654
Fax:  (617) 3875 5924
URL: http://www.edn.gu.edu.au/general/cdsr/home.htm