Research on Signed/Spoken Language Code switching

[Fischer Susan]

Mark brings up an important consideration,  English hegemony.  An  
additional issue arises when one is working on a language that  
doesn't use an alphabet, be it Roman or Cyrillic.  In recent years  
while working on the sign language of Japan, I've been referring to  
it as NS, for NihonSyuwa, following the request of a deaf Japanese  
linguist.  Unfortunately, I had previously referred to it in print as  
JSL, as have a number of other scholars.  Furthermore, according to  
my correspondence with other scholars in Asia, the sign languages of  
Taiwan, China, and Korea are referred to in English respectively as  
TSL, CSL, and KSL.  I think a case can be made for using these  
abbreviations, as well as JSL, due to the fact that the surrounding  
spoken languages don't use an alphabet (Korean does use a kind of  
syllabary),  Japanese, for example, would use 日本手話, which some  
people on this list probably can't even see, and which can't really  
be straightforwardly abbreviated in Roman letters.
On Sep 4, 2007, at 7:27 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:

> "Lorraine Leeson" <leesonl at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> But why do the acronyms need to be transparent?? This doesn't seem to
>> be a necessary condition of naming!
>
> As someone else has said, codes are codes and don't need to be  
> memorable.
> But there's a reason that, say, my university ID has a name form  
> (mamandel)
> as well as a number. If you're reading a comparative paper on, say,  
> namesign
> forms in SLs around the world, do you want to have to keep a cheat  
> sheet
> handy to know which one each code refers to? I don't.
>
> And as for the other complaint, that these terms are English-based:  
> We are
> writing here in English. If I read a Russian paper on spoken  
> languages, I
> would have no right to complain that (transliterated) "nemeckii"  
> doesn't
> resemble the English word "Hungarian" -- or, for that matter, the  
> Hungarian
> word "Magyar" (acute accent on the 2nd "a"). Codes are not language- 
> based,
> but names and abbreviations are. It would not be unfair for English- 
> language
> abbreviations (NOT codes!) for SLs to be English-based.
>
> But it would be polite for writers to introduce the abbreviations  
> on first
> use in a paper, as is typically done in biomedical text with  
> abbreviations
> for genes, proteins, diseases, and so on.
>
> m a m
> _______________________________________________
> SLLING-L mailing list
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/slling-l/attachments/20070904/195848a9/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
SLLING-L mailing list
SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l