The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Figures......Page 11
Tables......Page 12
Contributors......Page 13
Foreword......Page 17
Preface and acknowledgments......Page 19
Abbreviations......Page 20
1 Introduction......Page 21
2 Multilingualism: The global approach to sign languages......Page 28
Sign languages used by hearing people......Page 29
How many languages are there?......Page 31
Mutual intelligibility......Page 33
The problem of nomenclature for sign languages......Page 36
“Planned” signed languages that are not used by Deaf communities......Page 38
The “standard” and the importance of dictionaries......Page 39
Statistical approaches to the definition of languages......Page 41
Sign languages in Europe......Page 43
Historical relationships......Page 45
World politics......Page 48
Educational systems......Page 49
Suggested Readings......Page 50
Exercises......Page 51
3 Bilingualism and language contact......Page 53
Societal and individual bilingualism in the hearing world......Page 54
Canada......Page 55
Belgium......Page 56
Singapore......Page 57
Martha’s Vineyard in the USA......Page 58
A Yucatec Mayan village, Mexico......Page 59
Desa Kolok in Bali, Indonesia......Page 60
Bilingualism in most of the Deaf world......Page 61
Diglossia......Page 64
The transfer hypothesis: The influence of a first language upon the second......Page 65
Language shift......Page 67
Loan vocabulary in spoken languages......Page 68
“Loan” phenomena in sign language situations......Page 69
Mouthing......Page 74
Pidgins and creoles......Page 75
Code switching and code mixing......Page 77
Exercises......Page 79
4 Sociolinguistic variation......Page 81
The sociolinguistic variable......Page 82
Variable units in spoken languages......Page 83
Variable processes in spoken languages......Page 84
Early studies of variation in spoken languages......Page 86
Large-scale urban studies......Page 87
Recent research on sociolinguistic variation in spoken languages......Page 93
Sociolinguistic variation and language change......Page 94
Summary......Page 95
Variation in ASL......Page 96
An international perspective on variation in sign languages......Page 107
Perspectives on the structure of sign languages......Page 108
Variable units in sign and spoken languages......Page 110
Variable processes in spoken and sign languages......Page 112
Internal constraints on spoken and sign languages......Page 113
Social constraints particular to Deaf communities......Page 115
An exploratory case study of a phonological variable......Page 117
A large scale quantitative study: Lucas et al. (2001) on DEAF......Page 121
Summary of the studies......Page 124
Methodological issues for the studies......Page 125
Conclusions......Page 129
NOTES......Page 130
5 Discourse analysis......Page 132
Discourse structure......Page 133
Discourse action and interaction......Page 134
Context and discourse......Page 135
Speech act theory......Page 137
Interactional sociolinguistics......Page 138
Ethnography of communication......Page 139
Pragmatics......Page 141
Conversation analysis......Page 142
Features of sign language discourse......Page 144
Turntaking......Page 145
Conversational repair......Page 149
Discourse markers......Page 151
Constructing dialogue and action......Page 153
Cohesion......Page 155
Rhythm, rhyme and repetition......Page 156
The relevance of discourse genre......Page 158
Conclusion......Page 162
Suggested readings......Page 163
Exercises......Page 164
6 Language planning and policy......Page 165
The nature and purposes of language planning......Page 166
Ideologies of language policy......Page 179
The language planning process......Page 183
Language rights and language policy......Page 185
Evaluating language policies......Page 190
Conclusions......Page 192
Exercises......Page 193
NOTES......Page 194
Comment......Page 195
The statement......Page 196
APPENDIX 6.2 WORLD FEDERATION OF THE DEAF CALLS FOR RECOGNITION OF SIGN LANGUAGES......Page 198
7 Language attitudes......Page 201
Definitions......Page 203
Early research on language attitudes......Page 204
How are language attitudes studied?......Page 206
Direct measurement......Page 207
Indirect measurement......Page 208
Attitudes toward languages......Page 210
Attitudes toward language groups......Page 214
Language and identity......Page 216
Theories of language attitudes: Answers to the questions......Page 219
Second language......Page 222
Mass media......Page 223
Education......Page 224
Changes in language attitudes......Page 229
Suggested readings......Page 232
Exercises......Page 233
NOTES......Page 235
Bibliography......Page 237
Index......Page 269