Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SignMorph (The dynamics of sign language grammar: Morphology, language change, iconicity, and social structure in signing communities)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-12-31
SignMorph aims to explore two of the most fundamental questions in linguistics: (1) how much do the languages of world resemble and differ from each other? and (2) what factors can explain these similarities and the differences? We aim to address this question by exploring the sign languages of deaf communities which can provide unique insights into these issues. We are interested in how three specific factors have impacted how the linguistic structure of sign languages resemble or differ from each other. First, unlike spoken languages, sign languages are produced and perceived entirely in the visual-gestural modality: they are produced by movements of the hands, face, head, and body and perceived by our eyes. How does the visual-gestural, rather than auditory-oral, modality allow for links between sign language structure and meaning that may be different from spoken languages? Second, many researchers assume that many sign languages are 'younger' languages than most spoken languages, as many signing communities have only emerged in the last three centuries, and some very much more recently than that. This project gives us an opportunity to explore how their relatively short histories may have influenced language change processes that create grammatical structure. Third, signing communities are uniquely diverse in how sign languages are transmitted from one generation to the next. In many signing communities, there is a larger proportion of child-to-child transmission of sign languages, rather than parent to child transmission which is more typical of most other communities. There may also be varying ages of first language acquisition (something seen only very rarely in hearing people), and varying interaction with other deaf and hearing signers in their social networks.
We will explore these questions by comparing linguistic structures across three broad subtypes of sign languages and signing communities: (1) macro-community sign languages. such as British Sign Language, used across an entire nation state, (2) micro-community sign languages, used in specific towns and villages such as Kata Kolok in Bali, and (3) younger sign languages from recently emerged signing communities, such asGuinea Bissau Sign Language. This will allow us to compare aspects of sign language structure used in communities with different sociolinguistic profiles and with different histories. For example, the Guinea Bissau signing community began after the establishment of the first school in 2000. This contrasts with the British signing community, which began to emerge in its modern form in the 18th century or possibly earlier. Similarly, in the Kata Kolok community, many deaf children are exposed to signing from birth, compared to those in the British community, where this is only true of a minority of signers.
We have five specific overall objectives: (1) to understand the notions of linguistic 'complexity' that have been used to compare and contrast spoken and signed languages, (2) to explore what we can learn about the linguistic structure of sign languages by comparing data from different types of signing community, (3) to understand the relationship between the grammar of sign languages and the visual-gestural modality, (4) to understand more about the relationship between the grammar of sign languages and learnability, and (5) to investigate the relationship between the linguistic structure of sign languages and social structure in different types of signing communities.
We will explore these questions by comparing linguistic structures across three broad subtypes of sign languages and signing communities: (1) macro-community sign languages. such as British Sign Language, used across an entire nation state, (2) micro-community sign languages, used in specific towns and villages such as Kata Kolok in Bali, and (3) younger sign languages from recently emerged signing communities, such asGuinea Bissau Sign Language. This will allow us to compare aspects of sign language structure used in communities with different sociolinguistic profiles and with different histories. For example, the Guinea Bissau signing community began after the establishment of the first school in 2000. This contrasts with the British signing community, which began to emerge in its modern form in the 18th century or possibly earlier. Similarly, in the Kata Kolok community, many deaf children are exposed to signing from birth, compared to those in the British community, where this is only true of a minority of signers.
We have five specific overall objectives: (1) to understand the notions of linguistic 'complexity' that have been used to compare and contrast spoken and signed languages, (2) to explore what we can learn about the linguistic structure of sign languages by comparing data from different types of signing community, (3) to understand the relationship between the grammar of sign languages and the visual-gestural modality, (4) to understand more about the relationship between the grammar of sign languages and learnability, and (5) to investigate the relationship between the linguistic structure of sign languages and social structure in different types of signing communities.
In terms of the overall objectives of the SignMorph project, we have made good progress with objective (1) addressing the notion of linguistic complexity that has been used to compare spoken and signed languages. We have written and submitted a paper on the notion of grammatical complexity in sign languages, critiquing the frequent comparisons with spoken creole languages in the linguistics literature. Comparisons with creoles are often made because creole languages are viewed as 'young' languages, having emerged relatively recently compared to most spoken languages, because sign languages are also assumed to be relatively 'young'. This is relevant because many theories of language variation and change claim that many grammatical properties seen in the spoken languages of the world take some time to emerge through natural processes of language change, and as such, might not be expected in creoles and sign languages. We are also making good progress with objective (2) and are collecting data from a larger sample of sign languages than was originally envisaged in the project proposal. We are currently preparing the first papers on grammatical aspects of Nepali Sign Language and Kufr Qassem Sign Language. Objective (3) is also progressing well, with data collected from the first study, and several conference presentations about this work being planned. As yet, no work has been undertaken on objective (4) and research for objective (5) is still in the planning stages.
The expected results for this project are as follows: for objective (1), we will see the publication of a major journal article tacking the notion of grammatical complexity in signed and spoken languages which will problematise some of the assumptions we find in the literature and make recommendations for how to move forward in the comparative study of signed and spoken language grammatical structure. We hope too it will lead to an article in another outlet, such as The Conversation, that will draw attention to work in this domain. For objective (2), we are aiming to have PhD dissertations and a number of journal articles that will compare specific aspects of the linguistic structure of a number of different sign languages, highlighting key similarities and differences that might reflect aspects of language age and community structure: (a) the use of signing space and doing reference in a 'micro-community' sign language, Kufr Qassem Sign Language, compared to a 'macro-community' sign language, British Sign Language (BSL) ; (2) the use of number marking in nouns and the structure of classifier verbs in 'younger' sign language, Nepali Sign Language, and 'older' sign languages, BSL and the related variety New Zealand Sign Language; (3) the comparison of lexical variation in three signing communities of different ages and sizes: BSL, Israeli Sign Language, and Kata Kolok; (4) narrative structure in a very 'young' sign language, Guinea Bissau Sign Language, and two 'older' sign language BSL and Portuguese Sign Language; (5) language attitudes towards language contact and language change in Portuguese Sign Language and BSL. For objective (3), we will have several journal articles exploring (a) iconicity ratings for lexical items in American Sign Language and BSL (two 'older' 'macro-community' sign languages), (b) iconicity ratings for aspects of BSL grammar, and (c) experimental studies exploring the comprehension and production of iconic BSL grammatical structures. For objective (4), we aim to have a journal article exploring how grammatical systems in sign languages emerge and change under laboratory conditions in an experiment involving an artificial sign language, and lastly for objective (5) we hope to have the results of both an online survey and interviews with deaf and hearing members of the BSL community and relate them to the production and comprehension of some key areas of BSL grammar.