A sign language (also signed language) is a language which
uses manual communication, body language, and lip patterns instead of
sound to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes,
orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial
expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts. Signs often
represent complete ideas, not only words. However, in addition to
accepted gestures, mime, and hand signs, sign language often includes
finger spelling, which involves the use of hand positions to represent
the letters of the alphabet.
Although often misconceived of as an imitation or simplified version of
oral language, linguists such as William Stokoe have found sign
languages to be complex and thriving natural languages, complete with
their own syntax and grammar. In fact, the complex spatial grammars of
sign languages are markedly different than that of spoken language.
Sign languages have developed in circumstances where groups of people
with mutually unintelligible spoken languages found a common base and
were able to develop signed forms of communication. A well-known example
of this is found among Plains Indians, whose lifestyle and environment
was sufficiently similar despite no common base in their spoken
languages, that they were able to find common symbols that were used to
communicate even complex narratives among different tribes.
Sign languages commonly develop in deaf communities, which include
people who are deaf or hard of hearing, friends and families of deaf
people, as well as interpreters. In many cases, various signed "modes"
of spoken languages have been developed, such as Signed English and
Warlpiri Sign Language. Sign language differs from one region to
another, just as do spoken languages, and are mutually unintelligible.
Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the
core of local deaf cultures. The use of these languages has enabled the
deaf to be recognized as intelligent, educable people who are capable of
living life as fully and with as much value as anyone else. However,
much controversy exists over whether teaching deaf children sign
language is ultimately more beneficial than methods that allow them to
understand oral communication, such as lip-reading, since this enables
them to participate more directly and fully in the wider society.
Nonetheless, for those people who remain unable to produce or understand
oral language, sign language provides a way to communicate within their
society as full human beings with a clear cultural identity.
History and development of sign language
On the whole, deaf sign languages are independent of oral languages and
follow their own paths of development, even in situations where there
may be a common spoken language. Because they developed on their own,
British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and
mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of Britain and
America share the same oral language. American Sign Language does have
some similarities to French Sign Language, due to its early influences.
When people using different signed languages meet, however,
communication can be easier than when people of different spoken
languages meet. This is not because sign languages are universal, but
because deaf people may be more patient when communicating, and are
comfortable including gesture and mime.
Generally, each spoken language has a sign language counterpart because
each linguistic population contains deaf members who generated a sign
language. Geographical or cultural forces will isolate populations and
lead to the generation of different and distinct spoken languages; the
same forces operate on signed languages, therefore they tend to maintain
their identities through time in roughly the same areas of influence as
the local spoken languages. This occurs even though sign languages have
little or no relation to the spoken languages of the lands in which
they arise. There are notable exceptions to this pattern, however, as
some geographic regions sharing a spoken language have multiple,
unrelated signed languages. Variations within a "national" sign language
can usually be correlated to the geographic location of (residential)
schools for the deaf.
The written history of sign language began in the seventeenth century in Spain. In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (Reduction of letters and art for teaching dumb people to speak)
in Madrid. It is considered the first modern treatise of phonetics and
speech therapy, setting out a method of oral education for the deaf
people by means of the use of manual signs in the form of a manual
alphabet to improve the communication of deaf people.
From the language of signs of Bonet, Charles-Michel de l'Épée published
his alphabet in the eighteenth century, which has remained basically
unchanged until the present time. In 1755, Abbé de l'Épée founded the
first public school for deaf children in Paris. His lessons were based
upon his observations of deaf people signing with hands in the streets
of Paris. Synthesized with French grammar, it evolved into the French
Sign Language.
Laurent Clerc, a graduate and former teacher of the French School, went
to the United States with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to found the American
School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817. Others followed.
In 1817, Clerc and Gallaudet founded the American Asylum for the Deaf
and Dumb (now the American School for the Deaf). Gallaudet's son, Edward
Miner Gallaudet, founded the first college for the deaf in 1864 in
Washington, DC, which in 1986, became Gallaudet University, the only
liberal arts university for the deaf in the world.
International Sign, formerly known as "Gestuno," was created in 1973, to
enhance communication among members of the deaf community throughout
the world. It is an artificially constructed language and though some
people are reported to use it fluently, it is more of a pidgin than a
fully formed language. International Sign is used mainly at
international Deaf events such as the Deaflympics and meetings of the
World Federation of the Deaf.
Linguistics of sign
In linguistic terms, sign languages are rich and complex, despite the
common misconception that they are not "real languages." William Stokoe
started groundbreaking research into sign language in the 1960s.
Together with Carl Cronenberg and Dorothy Casterline, he wrote the first
sign language dictionary, A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles.
It was during this time he first began to refer to sign language not
just as sign language or manual communication, but as "American Sign
Language," or ASL. This ground-breaking dictionary listed signs and
explained their meanings and usage, and gave a linguistic analysis of
the parts of each sign. Since then, linguists have studied many sign
languages and found them to have every linguistic component required to
be classified as true languages.
Sign languages are not merely pantomime, but are made of largely
arbitrary signs that have no necessary visual relationship to their
referent, much as most spoken language is not onomatopoeic. Nor are they
a visual renditions of an oral language. They have complex grammars of
their own, and can be used to discuss any topic, from the simple and
concrete to the philosophical and abstract. For example, in terms of
syntax, ASL shares more with spoken Japanese than it does with English.
Sign languages, like oral languages, organize elementary, meaningless
units (phonemes; once called cheremes in the case of sign languages)
into meaningful semantic units. The elements of a sign are Hand shape (or Handform), Orientation (or Palm Orientation), Location (or Place of Articulation), Movement, and Non-manual markers (or Facial Expression), summarized in the acronym HOLME. Signs, therefore, are not an alphabet but rather represent words or other meaningful concepts.
In addition to such signs, most sign languages also have a manual
alphabet. This is used mostly for proper names and technical or
specialized vocabulary. The use of fingerspelling was once taken as
evidence that sign languages are simplified versions of oral languages,
but it is merely one tool in complex and vibrant languages.
Fingerspelling can sometimes be a source of new signs, which are called
lexicalized signs.
Common linguistic features of deaf sign languages are extensive use of
classifiers, a high degree of inflection, and a topic-comment syntax.
Many unique linguistic features emerge from sign languages' ability to
produce meaning in different parts of the visual field simultaneously.
For example, the recipient of a signed message can read meanings carried
by the hands, the facial expression, and the body posture at the same
time. This is in contrast to oral languages, where the sounds that
comprise words are mostly sequential (tone being an exception).
Spatial grammar and simultaneity
Sign languages are able to capitalize on the unique features of the
visual medium. Oral language is linear and only one sound can be made or
received at a time. Sign language, instead, is visual; hence, a whole
scene can be taken in at once. Information can be loaded into several
channels and expressed simultaneously.
As an illustration, in English one could utter the phrase, "I drove
here." To add information about the drive, one would have to make a
longer phrase or even add a second, such as, "I drove here along a
winding road," or "I drove here. It was a nice drive." However, in
American Sign Language, information about the shape of the road or the
pleasing nature of the drive can be conveyed simultaneously with the
verb "drive" by inflecting the motion of the hand, or by taking
advantage of non-manual signals such as body posture and facial
expression, at the same time that the verb "drive" is being signed.
Therefore, in English the phrase "I drove here and it was very pleasant"
is longer than "I drove here," in American Sign Language the two may be
the same length.
Written forms of sign languages
Sign languages are not often written, and documented written systems
were not created until after the 1960s. Most deaf signers read and write
the oral language of their country. However, there have been several
attempts at developing scripts for sign language. These have included
both "phonetic" systems, such as Hamburg Sign Language Notation System,
or HamNoSys, and SignWriting, which can be used for any sign language,
as well as "phonemic" systems such as the one used by William Stokoe in
his 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language, which are designed for a specific language.
The phonemic systems of oral languages are primarily sequential:
That is, the majority of phonemes are produced in a sequence one after
another, although many languages also have non-sequential aspects such
as tone. As a consequence, traditional phonemic writing systems are also
sequential, with at best diacritics for non-sequential aspects such as
stress and tone. Sign languages have a higher non-sequential component,
with many "phonemes" produced simultaneously. For example, signs may
involve fingers, hands, and face moving simultaneously, or the two hands
moving in different directions. Traditional writing systems are not
designed to deal with this level of complexity.
The Stokoe notation is sequential, with a conventionalized order of a
symbol for the location of the sign, then one for the hand shape, and
finally one (or more) for the movement. The orientation of the hand is
indicated with an optional diacritic before the hand shape. When two
movements occur simultaneously, they are written one atop the other;
when sequential, they are written one after the other. Stokoe used
letters of the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals to indicate the
handshapes used in fingerspelling, such as "A" for a closed fist, "B"
for a flat hand, and "5" for a spread hand; but non-alphabetic symbols
for location and movement, such as "[]" for the trunk of the body, "×"
for contact, and "^" for an upward movement.
SignWriting, developed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, is highly featural and
visually iconic, both in the shapes of the characters—which are
abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body—and in their spatial
arrangement on the page, which does not follow a sequential order like
the letters that make up written English words. Being pictographic, it
is able to represent simultaneous elements in a single sign. Neither the
Stokoe nor HamNoSys scripts were designed to represent facial
expressions or non-manual movements, both of which SignWriting
accommodates easily.
Use of signs in hearing communities
While not full languages, many elaborate systems of manual communication
have developed in situations where speech is not practical or
permitted, such as cloistered religious communities, scuba diving,
television recording studios, loud workplaces, stock exchanges, in
baseball, while hunting (by groups such as the Kalahari bushmen), or in
the game Charades. In Rugby Union, the referee uses a limited but
defined set of signs to communicate his/her decisions to the spectators.
On occasion, where there are enough deaf people in the area, a deaf sign
language has been taken up by an entire local community. Famous
examples of this include Martha's Vineyard Sign Language in the U.S.,
Kata Kolok in a village in Bali, Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana, and
Yucatec Maya sign language in Mexico. In such communities, deaf people
are not socially disadvantaged.
Many Australian Aboriginal sign languages arose in a context of
extensive speech taboos, such as during mourning and initiation rites.
They are or were especially highly developed among the Warlpiri,
Warumungu, Dieri, Kaytetye, Arrernte, Warlmanpa, and are based on their
respective spoken languages.
Sign language has also been used to facilitate communication among
peoples of mutually intelligible languages. In the case of Chinese and
Japanese, where the same body of written characters is used but with
different pronunciation, communication is possible through watching the
"speaker" trace the mutually understood characters on the palm of their
hand.
A pidgin sign language arose among tribes of American Indians in the
Great Plains region of North America. Although the languages of the
Plains Indians were unrelated, their way of life and environment had
many common features. They were able to find common symbols which were
then used to communicate even complex narratives among different tribes.
For example, the gesture of brushing long hair down the neck and
shoulders signified a woman, two fingers astride the other index finger
represented a person on horseback, a circle drawn against the sky meant
the moon, and so forth. Unlike other sign languages developed by hearing
people, it shares the spatial grammar of deaf sign languages.
Home sign
Sign systems are sometimes developed within a single family. For
instance, when hearing parents with no sign language skills have a deaf
child, an informal system of signs will naturally develop, unless
repressed by the parents. The term for these mini-languages is home sign
(sometimes homesign or kitchen sign).
Home sign arises due to the absence of any other way to communicate.
Within the span of a single lifetime and without the support or feedback
of a community, the child is forced to invent signals to facilitate the
meeting of his or her communication needs. Although this kind of system
is grossly inadequate for the intellectual development of a child and
does not meet the standards linguists use to describe a complete
language, it is a common occurrence.
Benefits
For deaf and hard of hearing students, there have been long standing
debates regarding the teaching and use of sign language versus oral
methods of communication and lip reading. Proficiency in sign language
gives deaf children a sense of cultural identity, which enables them to
bond with other deaf individuals. This can lead to greater self-esteem
and curiosity about the world, both of which enrich the student
academically and socially. Certainly, the development of sign language
showed that deaf-mute children were educable, opening educational
opportunities at the same level as those who hear.