Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marie@linguistlist.org>
Almost two months ago, in response to a question from one of my students i posted a query about cross-linguistic sign-language communication: Is there some lingua franca commonly used by signers who have no native language in common? Several people asked me to post a summary of the responses i got. First of all, i would like to thank the following for the information they provided: Dorothea Cogill-Koez <dcogill@pobox.une.edu.au> Susan Fischer <fischer@mail.rit.edu> Nancy Frishberg <nancyf@fishbird.com> Jennifer Herbold <jherbold@email.arizona.edu> Randall Hogue <randallhogue@yahoo.com> Leland McCleary <mccleary@usp.br> Ken Shan <ken@digitas.harvard.edu> Davide Turcato <turk@sfu.ca> Remy Viredaz <remy.viredaz@bluewin.ch> Philippe Xu <philippeplus@yahoo.com.cn> And now, the summary: At one level, ASL was frequently mentioned as sharing within the Deaf/Signing community the same lingua-franca status that English currently enjoys within the more general international community, including the same `fashionable cachet' as English enjoys in many non-English-speaking countries. One respondent noted that part of what this means is that ASL has become an important source of loans into other gestural languages. Another noted that, at a recent conference at which there was much discussion about what language to use for the sake of international participants, spoken English and ASL `were strong candidates'. A third pointed out that one factor contributing to ASL's ascendancy is the existence of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. (at which ASL is presumably the primary medium of instruction?), a university dedicated specifically to the education of the deaf, which draws a sizable number of international students. (One respondent speculated that, with the gradual weakening of international boundaries in Europe, a new generation of young deaf Europeans may eventually succeed in developing a decent pan-European sign lingua franca to contest ASL's hegemony.) At another level, several respondents told me about an `artificial' sign language, formerly known as `Gestuno' (a name i was already familiar with and mention in my lectures), now increasingly referred to as International Sign Language or ISL. Several people compared ISL to Esperanto as a deliberately-engineered, artificial language (responsibility for this was referred to `a committee of the World Federation of the Deaf') that can be used for communication across language barriers but which has no native speakers. One difference between ISL and Esperanto, apparently, is that ISL lacks what one respondent referred to as a `formal grammar' (another descriptive phrase used was `moderately codified'); another, perhaps clarifying this statement, described ISL as `more a vocabulary of signs that all agree to use at international meetings'. A third described the rules as `very flexible'. Many of the statements i got wrt ISL made it sound to a comparative linguist like myself like a pidgin, koine, or trade jargon -- indeed, one respondent used the word `pidgin' in describing it -- that different people adapt for use according to their own notions of `reasonable' grammatical structure. It was noted that it is used primarily by Europeans, Australians, and North and South Americans -- basically, First-Worlders. Asians and Africans from various countries presumably use differing versions, and thus there is some difficulty with communication in ISL between individuals from different countries. Another respondent mentioned that ISL is used in international athletic competitions, etc. involving the Deaf, and that interpreters for such events often have to take short courses. Turcato provided the following list of references on Gestuno/ISL: British Deaf Association, 1975. `Gestuno: International Sign Language of the Deaf'. Magarotto, Cesare, 1974. `Towards an International Language of Gestures'. (Unesco Courier) Moody, Bill, 1987. `International Gestures' in John V. Van Cleve (ed.), _Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People and Deafness_ (McGraw Hill). Websites: http://www.handspeak.com/isl http://www.safat.com/pwsn/gestuno.html While on the subject of references, Frishberg mentioned a couple of papers by Battison and Jordan (both papers by both people), published in 1976 in _Sign Language Studies_, vol. 10, on the subject of mutual intelligibility of sign languages. At a third level, it was noted that signers are generally better at interlingual communication than non-signers even without a lingua franca; thus, there is less pressure on Deaf/Signers to develop or recognize a lingua franca than is typically the case for users of oral/aural language. Hypothetical reasons offered for this include: More practice at interlingual/intermodal communication Greater similarities between different gestural languages Greater role of general `body-language' communication in connection with sign language. Under the heading of `similarities between different gestural languages', one respondent mentioned the importance of classifiers, which supposedly carry a greater semantic and functional load than classifiers in typical spoken languages that make use of them. Another alluded to common notions wrt the grammatical use of physical signing space that `goes a long way to help create impromptu and effective pidgins'. This same respondent spoke of deaf people from different national/linguistic backgounds `negotiat[ing] their communications' for those occasions when they get together, which seemed to imply that each such occasion tends to produce its own, ad hoc pidgin or lingua franca -- based heavily on these general similarities; the respondent further remarked, `The successful negotiations are a wonder to behold; the extremely unsuccessful are the stuff of lawsuits'. Best, Steven Steven Schaufele, Ph.D. Asst. Prof. Linguistics, English Dept. Soochow Univeristy, Taipei, Taiwan (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 (O) (886)(02)2835-6966 (H) fcosw5@mail.scu.edu.twMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue