"Sign Langauge" & "Signed Language"

[Philocophus]

As a profoundly deaf person who is a fluent user of BSL (I also speak very well I must admit), I am
quite fascinated by linguists' use of two entirely different terms to mean the same thing "signed
language" and "sign language".

>From a deaf persons' perspective, these meanings are different to us. To us, "signed language" refer
to signing the language. For example, signed English, signed German, signed Polish, etc. Where we
recognise "sign language" to mean the native sign language, for example ASL, BSL, FSL, etc.

Interesting, but it would be nice to clear up the slight confusion it would cause among deaf people!

Regards

Raymond Lee

Head of Research & Publications
British Deaf History Society
UK.

Philocophus at philocophus.demon.co.uk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/slling-l/attachments/20030503/2303ce0a/attachment.htm>