[sw-l] non-deaf people and mouthing

Ingvild Roald iroald at HOTMAIL.COM
Sat Feb 26 17:43:35 UTC 2005


Val and Shane and all,

at least here in Norway, where mouthing is part if the sign language, it is
never a question of 'mouthing every single word' in a conversation. Some
signs needs mouthings that are boorowed from Norwegian spoken language (like
Shane's excample of 'deeee' for 'dead' in NISL), and some have fixed
mouthings7 facial expression going with them, that are not borrowed from
Norwegian spoken language, and some have mouthings/ facial expressions that
change with the circumstances and are more like adverbials or adjectives to
the sign. And some, or most, have no specific mouthing.

On the other hand, when a Deaf person is asked for 'the sign for .....',
they will mouth the word as they sign. That way more mouthing than necessary
may creep into a dictionary.

As I am non-Deaf, I cannot say for sure what Deaf pepole do amongst
themselves, but I am told from reliable sources that what I have prevously
described is correct.

Ingvild



>From: "Valerie Sutton" <sutton at signwriting.org>

>Subject: Re: [sw-l] non-deaf people and mouthing
>Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:48:07 -0800



>Meanwhile, Stuart and I are wondering if it is different in Europe? When
>two fluent signing Deaf people in BSL sign to each other, without any
>non-deaf people in the room...do they mouth every single word in English
>while they are signing in BSL grammar?



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