[sw-l] mouthing in the EU

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Shane Gilchrist Ó hEorpa <shane.gilchrist.oheorpa at fran...:

> I just told someone off for mouthing in English when he can do better in BSL
> mouthing.
>
> Mouthing in English is discouraged in Belfast & Derry yet it's encouraged in
> Dublin to some extent (!)

I wish you'd been teaching me today Shane; we had a session on the use and
appropriateness of SSE v BSL. Had to prepare the same story in BSL and in
SSE. Interpreter leading the session thinks that SSE is acceptable.
Personally, even though I'm hearing ;-) , I don't find it so. Rather like
transliterations of the Bible that pretend to be translations; but are
nothing more than English glosses replacing Hebrew or Greek words. It ends
up being unnatural and wooden. SSE is nothing more than occasional signed
glosses accompanying spoken English. At best that's a creole but it ain't
BSL.

There are some well-defined moments in a BSL discourse when mouthings are
acceptable but sadly students seem to have to wait until BSL NVQ Level 3
courses to discover when those occur. And even then mostly by reading
Sutton-Spence & Woll's Linguistics of BSL book.

Regards, Trevor

<>< Re: deemed!