Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T04:24:03.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Sign languages in the world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

By
Jordan Fenlon  and
Erin Wilkinson
Edited by
Adam C. Schembri  and
Ceil Lucas
Jordan Fenlon
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Erin Wilkinson
Affiliation:
University of Manitoba
Adam C. Schembri
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Ceil Lucas
Affiliation:
Gallaudet University, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

What is multilingualism?

Multilingualism, the use of two or more languages by an individual or a community is described as a ‘powerful fact of life around the world’ (Edwards 1994). If we consider that there are an estimated 195 countries in the world today against the 7,106 living languages listed in the Ethnologue, we might assume that for most of the world's population, multilingualism is a common occurrence (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2013). But what do we mean by multilingualism? Research in this field is interested in how languages coexist alongside other languages and the factors that contribute to the various multilingual environments throughout the world. For example, people who know more than one language may or may not be equally proficient in each of their languages; they may only be as proficient as is necessary and their use of different languages may be confined to specific social settings or groups. The extent to which these language communities interact with one another may also vary. Additionally, some languages may not have any official recognition within the nation states in which they are found, and this may affect how these languages are perceived by others.

When we consider sign languages, we find many examples of multilingualism that parallel those described for spoken languages. In this chapter, we describe how multilingualism is a fact of life for nearly (if not all) signing individuals. We begin with a brief description of sign language as languages in their own right followed by a description of the different environments in which sign languages can thrive and the patterns of transmission that define them so that one can appreciate where, why, and how sign languages exist today. We also describe the types of multilingual environments that characterize the lives of deaf individuals and the factors that contribute to or against multilingualism.

Type
Chapter
Information
Sociolinguistics and Deaf Communities , pp. 5 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, L. (1979) A comparison of some American, British, Australian and Swedish Signs: Evidence on historical changes in signs and some family relationships of sign languages. Paper presented at the First International Symposium on Sign Language, Stockholm, Sweden.
Ann, J. (1998) Contact between a sign language and a written language: Character signs in Taiwan Sign Language. In Lucas, C. (ed.), Pinky Extension and Eye Gaze: Language Use in Deaf Communities (pp. 59–99). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Benenz, N. (2003) Surdos Veceremos: The rise of the Brazilian Deaf community. In Monaghan, L., Schmaling, C., Nakamura, K., and Turner, G. (eds.), Many Ways to Be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities (pp. 173–193). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Bergman, B. and Engberg-Pederson, E. (2010) Transmission of sign languages in the Nordic countries. In Brentari, D. (ed.), Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, L. (1933) Language. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Boyes-Braem, P. and Rathmann, C. (eds.) (2010) Transmission of Sign Languages in Northern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Branson, J., Miller, D., and Marsaja, I. G. (1996) Everyone here speaks sign language too: A deaf village in Bali, Indonesia. In Lucas, C. (ed.), Multicultural Aspects of Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities (pp. 39–57). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust (2014) BSL Zone.
Crystal, D. (2001) Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumberbatch, K. (2012) Sociolinguistic sketch of Konchri Sain. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 387–388). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
de Quadros, R. M. (2012) Linguistics policies, linguistic planning, and Brazilian Sign Language in Brazil. Sign Language Studies, 12(4): 543–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vos, C. (2012) Sign–spatiality in Kata Kolok: How a village sign language of Bali inscribes its signing space, Ph.D. dissertation, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Delgado, C. E. E. (2012) Chican Sign Language: A sociolinguistic sketch. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 377–380). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Dikyuva, H. (2012) Mardin Sign Language: Signing in a ‘deaf family’. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 395–400). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Dotter, F. and Okorn, I. (2003) Austria's hidden conflict: Hearing culture versus deaf culture. In Monaghan, L., Schmaling, C., Nakamura, K., and Turner, G. (eds.), Many Ways to Be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities (pp. 49–66). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, J. (1994) Multilingualism. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmorey, K. (2002) Language, Cognition, and the Brain: Insights from Sign Language Research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1981) ‘Foreigner talk’ as the name of a simplified register. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 28: 9–18.Google Scholar
Furman, N., Goldberg, D., and Lusin, N. (2010) Enrollments in Languages other than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2009. New York: Modern Language Association of America. Google Scholar
Gallaudet Research Institute (2008) Regional and National Summary Report of Data from the 2007–08 Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Youth. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Gerner de Garcia, B. A. (1995) ESL applications for Hispanic deaf students. Bilingual Research Journal, 19(3–4): 453–467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012) Homesign: Gesture to language. In Pfau, R., Steinbach, M., and Woll, B. (eds.), Sign Language: An International Handbook (pp. 601–625). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Groce, N. (1985) Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haualand, H. (2007) The two-week village: The significance of sacred occasions for the Deaf community. In Ingstad, B. and Whyte, S. R. (eds.), Disability in Local and Global Worlds (pp. 33–55). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hiddinga, A. and Crasborn, O. (2011) Signed languages and globalization. Language in Society, 40: 483–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, R. E. (1994) Sign language and the concept of deafness in a traditional Yucatec Mayan village. In Erting, C., Johnson, R. E., Smith, D., and Snider, B. (eds.), The Deaf Way: Perspectives from the International Conference on Deaf Culture (pp. 102–109). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, T. (2003) BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three signed languages or one? In Baker, A., van den Bogaerde, B., and Crasborn, O. (eds.), Cross-Linguistic Perspectives in Sign Language Research: Selected papers from TISLR 2000 (pp. 47–69). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.Google Scholar
Johnston, T. (2004) W(h)ither the Deaf community? Population, genetics and the future of Australian Sign Language. American Annals of the Deaf, 148(5): 358–375.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnston, T. and Schembri, A. (2007) Australian Sign Language: An Introduction to Sign Language Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, T. and Schembri, A. (2013) Corpus analysis of sign languages. In Chapelle, C. A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 1312–1319). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Keating, E., Edwards, T., and Mirus, G. (2008) Cybersign: Impacts of new communication technologies on space and language. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(6): 1067–1081.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kisch, S. (2008) Deaf discourse: The social construction of deafness in a Bedouin community. Medical Anthropology, 27(3): 283–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kisch, S. (2012) Demarcating generations of signers in the dynamic sociolinguistic landscape of a shared sign language: The case of the Al-Sayyid Bedouin. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 87–126). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Kusters, A. (2012) Since time immemorial until the end of days: An ethnographic study of the production of Deaf space in Adamorobe, Ph.D., University of Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Kyle, J. and Woll, B. (1985) Sign Language: The Study of Deaf People and Their Language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ladd, P. (2003) Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, H. (1984) When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Lane, H., Hoffmeister, R., and Bahan, B. (1996) A Journey into the Deaf World. San Diego: Dawn Sign Press.Google Scholar
Lanesman, S. and Meir, I. (2012) The survival of Algerian Jewish Sign Language alongside Israeli Sign Language in Israel. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 153–180). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
LaSasso, C. J., Crain, K. L., and Leybaert, J. (eds.) (2010) Cued Speech and Cued Language for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing.Google Scholar
Leeson, L. and Saeed, J. I. (2012) Irish Sign Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. M., Simons, G. F., and Fennig, C. D. (2013) Ethnologue: Languages of the World.
Lucas, C., Bayley, R., and Valli, C. (2001) Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language (vol. VII). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, C. and Valli, C. (1992) Language Contact in the American Deaf Community. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
McBurney, S. (2012) History of sign languages and sign language linguistics. In Pfau, R., Steinbach, M., and Woll, B. (eds.), Sign Language: An International Handbook (pp. 909–948). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
McCagg, W. (1993) Some problems in the history of Deaf Hungarians. In van Cleve, J. V. (ed.), Deaf History Unveiled (pp. 252–271). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
McCaskill, C., Lucas, C., Bayley, R., and Hill, J. (2011) The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
McKee, R. (2011) Action pending: Four years on from the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, 42(2): 277–297.Google Scholar
Marsaja, I. G. (2008) Desa Kolok: A Deaf Village and Its Sign Language in Bali, Indonesia. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Martin, J. A. M., Bentzen, O., Colley, J. R., Hennebert, D., Holm, C., Iurato, S., Morgon, A. (1981) Childhood deafness in the European community. Scandinavian Audiology, 10: 165–174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matthews, P. (1996) The Irish Deaf Community: Survey Report, History of Education, Language and Culture (vol. I). Dublin: Linguistic Institute of Ireland.Google Scholar
Maypilama, E. and Adone, D. (2012) Yolngu Sign Language: A sociolinguistic profile. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 401–404). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Meir, I. and Sandler, W. (2008) A Language in Space: The Story of Israeli Sign Language. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mitchell, R. E. and Karchmer, M. A. (2004) Chasing the mythical ten percent: parental hearing status of deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States. Sign Language Studies, 4(2): 138–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, J. (2009) Sign languages. In Pierre-Yves, (ed.), The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History (pp. 947–948). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Namir, L., Sella, I., Rimor, M., and Schlesinger, I. M. (1979) Dictionary of Sign Language of the Deaf in Israel. Jerusalem: Ministry of Social Welfare.Google Scholar
Nonaka, A. M. (2004) Sign languages – the forgotten endangered languages: lessons on the importance of remembering. Language in Society, 33(5): 737–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nonaka, A. M. (2011) Interrogatives in Ban Khor Sign Language: A preliminary description. In Mathur, G. and Napoli, D. J. (eds.), Deaf Around the World (pp. 194–220). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nonaka, A. M. (2012) Language ecological change in Ban Khor, Thailand: An ethnographic case study of village sign language endangerment. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 277–312). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Nyst, V. (2007) A Descriptive Analysis of Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana). (Ph.D.), University of Amsterdam, Utrecht.Google Scholar
Nyst, V. (2012) Shared sign languages. In Pfau, R., Steinbach, M., and Woll, B. (eds.), Sign Language: An International Handbook (pp. 552–574). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Nyst, V., Sylla, K., and Magassouba, M. (2012) Deaf signers in Douentza, a rural area in Mali. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 277–312). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Okuyama, Y. and Iwai, M. (2011) Use of text messaging by deaf adolescents in Japan. Sign Language Studies, 11(3): 375–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Padden, C. (2011) Sign language geography. In Mathur, G. and Napoli, D. J. (eds.), Deaf Around the World (pp. 19–37). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Padden, C. and Humphries, T. (1988) Deaf in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Panda, S. (2012) Alipur Sign Language: A sociolinguistic and cultural profile. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 353–360). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Phillipson, R. (2012) English: From British empire to corporate empire. Sociolinguistics Studies, 5(3): 441–464.Google Scholar
Plann, S. (1997) A Silent Minority: Deaf Education in Spain, 1550–1835. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Potowski, K. (2013) Language maintenance and shift. In Bayley, R., Cameron, R., and Lucas, C. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics (pp. 321–339). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenstock, R. (2004) An Investigation of International Sign: Analyzing Structure and Comprehension. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sáfár, A., Meurant, L., Haesenne, T., Nauta, Y. N., De Weerdt, D., and Ormel, E. (in press). Mutual intelligibility among the sign language of Belgium and the Netherlands. Linguistics.
Sandler, W., Meir, I., Padden, C., and Aronoff, M. (2005) The emergence of grammar: Systematic structure in a new language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(7): 2661–2665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schembri, A. (2010) Documenting sign languages. In Austin, P. (ed.), Language Documentation and Description (vol. VII, pp. 105–143). London: School of African and Oriental Studies.Google Scholar
Schembri, A., Cormier, K., Johnston, T., McKee, D., McKee, R., and Woll, B. (2010) Sociolinguistic variation in British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Languages. In Brentari, D. (ed.), Sign Languages (pp. 476–498). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schermer, T. (2004) Lexical variation in Sign Language of the Netherlands. In Van Herreweghe, M. and Vermeerbergen, M. (eds.), To the Lexicon and beyond: Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities (pp. 91–110). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Schmaling, C. (2003) The impact of ASL on the Deaf community in Kano state. In Monaghan, L., Nakamura, K., Schmaling, C., and Turner, G. (eds.), Many Ways to be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities (pp. 302–310). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Schuit, J. (2012) Signing in the Arctic: External influences on Inuit Sign Language. In Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.), Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights (pp. 181–208). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.Google Scholar
Senghas, R. J. (2003) New ways to be Deaf in Nicaragua: Changes in language, personhood, and community. In Monaghan, L., Nakamura, K., Schmaling, C., and Turner, G. H. (eds.), Many Ways to be Deaf: International, Linguistic, and Sociocultural Variation (pp. 260–282). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Stamp, R., Schembri, A., Fenlon, J., Rentelis, R., Woll, B., and Cormier, K. (accepted). Lexical variation and change in British Sign Language. PLoS ONE.
Stokoe, W. (1960) Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication system of the American Deaf. Paper presented at the Studies in Linguistics Occasional Paper 8, University of Buffalo.
Sutton-Spence, R. and Woll, B. (1999) The Linguistics of British Sign Language: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNESCO (2003) Language Vitality and Endangerment. Document adopted by the International Expert meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages. Paris, 10–12 March 2003: UNESCO.
Valentine, G. and Skelton, T. (2008) Changing spaces: The role of the internet in shaping Deaf geographies. Social and Cultural Geography, 9(5), 469–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vasishta, M., Woodward, J. C., and Wilson, K. (1978) Sign language in India: Regional variation within the deaf population. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2: 66–74.Google Scholar
Washabaugh, W. (1981) The Deaf of Grand Cayman, British West Indies. Sign Language Studies, 31: 117–133.Google Scholar
Wheatley, M. and Pabsch, A. (2012) Sign Language Legislation in the European Union. Brussels: European Union of the Deaf.Google Scholar
Willoughby, L. (2012) Language maintenance and the deaf child. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(6): 605–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woll, B. (2006) Sign language: History. In Brown, K. (ed.), The Encyclodpedia of Language and Linguistics (pp. 307–310). Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woll, B., Sutton-Spence, R., and Elton, F. (2001) Multilingualism: The global approach to sign languages. In Lucas, C. (ed.), The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. C. (1978) Historical bases of American Sign Language. In Siple, P. (ed.), Understanding Language through Sign Language Research (pp. 333–348). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. C. (2011) Research methodology in lexicostatistical studies of sign languages. In Mathur, G. and Napoli, D. J. (eds.), Deaf Around the World (pp. 38–53). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
World Federation of the Deaf (2013a) WFD Newsletter, September 2013.
World Federation of the Deaf (2013b) Frequently asked questions, retrieved September.
Yang, J. H. (2011) Social situations and the education of deaf children in China. In Mathur, G. and Napoli, D. J. (eds.), Deaf Around the World (pp. 339–351). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zeshan, U. (2000) Sign Language in Indo-Pakistan. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeshan, U. (2004) Hand, head, and face: Negative constructions in sign languages. Linguistic Typology, 8: 1–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeshan, U. and de Vos, C. (eds.) (2012) Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×