[sw-l] non-deaf people and mouthing

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005, Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org> wrote:

> > 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? ...

That would be the creole known as Signed Supported English (SSE) though I
personally consider a more approrpriate name to be "English with (some)
supporting signs". SSE is known in the literature as Sim-Com.

> > ... How do the native Deaf signers change their language to accomodate
> > the non-deaf person?
>
> We have signers who are "accommodating" in this way.

This seems to happen automatically rather like the way that hearing people
accommodate the presence of children.

> These full BSL signers use very few English lip patterns -

Around London BSL has more lipped words than is apparent elsewhere.
However, this may reflect the influence of certain oralist schools located
close to London rather than being a true feature of the language.

Regards, Trevor

<>< Re: deemed!