Zeshan, Ulrike;
Sign Language in Indo-Pakistan: A Description of a Signed Language
John Benjamins Publishing Co, 2000, 178 pages
ISBN 1556198574
topics: | sign-language | india
based on ph.d thesis at U. Cologne 96, advisor: Hans-Juergen Sasse,
Linguistics.
SL community:
core: pre-lingual deaf, child-of-deaf-adults CODA, post-lingual deaf,
hard of hearing, late deaf
villages in Bali and Ghana - all hearing people can also sign - in Bali -
48 deaf out of 2300 - and all can sign - to different degrees
- some small children not exposed to others can't sign
India has about 1.5mn signers (abt 3.1mn hearing handicapped)
abt 600 deaf schools, many of them residential
(as opp to abt 50 in Germany)
dozens of main Sign dialects
ISL typology
sign space - uses space effectively
simultaneous signs -
Q words - are signed using signs similar to the spoken population -
e.g. q.word uses the same face and hand expression, and negation uses the
shake of the open hand.
The same wh-word (palms open) - are used for all q words - e.g. "face q-word"
comes at the end. Word order:
you name what
you siblings num what
you like face what
you go time what
both of us meeting time what
Negation is culture specific - the indian q-word face in Turkey means
negation. [PROBABLY true for speaking population in turkey also?]
Rehab Council of India - approves the SL teaching material prepared by
NIHH -- who are training teachers etc. in SL
Ishara foundation - Natl deaf literacy project
How children are taught to read and write
start by reading books in SL while pointing to the line so that the child
knows how the line contains meaning - and then the words and finally the
grammar items - like articles etc which are missing in SL.
In Sweden - they are taught to read and write - and then depend on the degree
of residual hearing - to oralize
computers in SL - teaching SL -
internet based SL teaching - film displays
most hearing people find SL difficult - but once you know one you can learn
others. 360 hours for level 1 - 3 mos fulltime - to learn SL. Couple of years
to become comfortable.
deaf identity overrides other identities - caste, poverty, geography etc.
even internationally.
SLs similarity to spoken grammar - varies -
Chinese - many signs are sign mandarin
do not work well for lgs like turkish which is highly agglutinative -
konush|a|ma|di|m - i am not able to accept
accept | able to | not | pres | first-person
the work acknowledges her husband: hamid mahmood zeshan, and arun rao from
delhi; dr onkar sharma
parts of book publ earlier in german 97 and in engl transln 96
[Woodward 93]: rate of sign similarity:
karachi and delhi: 76%
karachi and bangalore: 63%
W93: SL varieties in India, Pakistan, and Nepal are distinct but clearly
related. lg varieties that belong to the same lg family.
Variations in fingerspelling (App A fig1 NISE pakistan vs Fig 2 Deshmukh):
O, W are significantly different
I, J, T, U are slightly different, often involving a one-handed version in
Deshmukh of what is a 2-handed version in NISE
sociology of ISL: [jepson 91]
pakistan natl congress 94 - each lg variety had to agree on a single
sign; only 50 signs of 860 had regional variants. however
within-region variations were not recorded - particularly kinship
terms had wide variations.
[Dilip Deshmukh 96] : SL and bilingualism in deaf education (Ichalkaranji ?sp)
ICONICITY: A good example of a grammatical process involving iconicity is the
set of aspectual modifications of the basic form of a sign (see 3.3.2.)
50
non-discrete requiring analog rules, e.g. pronominal forms that take the form
of points in the signing space, or signs such as MEET in ASL with its
countless variations representing various kinds of "meeting".
[ or SEE with the object as a point in signing space] 50-1
attempts to place SL in the formal canon of "languages" led to downplaying
the iconic aspects, but Klima and Bellugi, 1979, p.21:
that there _is an iconic relation -- that elements of a form of a sign are
related to visual aspects of what is denoted -- does not in any way
determine the actual details of the form. 52
Often the deaf user may not be aware of the iconic basis of many of his
signs. However, the latent iconic potential can manifest itself in "playful
or poetic forms of SL or in the creation of new signs." [Boyes-Braem:1940,
p.41]
e.g. Car, Drive: hands moved as if turning steering wheel - may be modified
with faster/larger motions, and with appropriate facial expressions, meaning:
"drive ruthlessly" 53
DISTRIBUTIVE: Sign is repeated - often three times from right to left [in Pakistan, wonder if it is that way in India]: CERTIFICATE PRIVATE KOSHISH-DIST I tried (to get a job) with my certificate at various private (firms) But may be more indicative : SHOOT-1-DIST --> I was hit by several bullets places of articulation of SHOOT is modificied are distributed over points on the body of the speaker. Applying linguistic terminology to SL can be tricky - e.g. distributive aspect may not be consid3ered 'verbal inflections' or 'inflections of action signs' - e.g. ISKUL JAGAH-DIST ISHARA PURA SIFR school place sign all zero (Other) schools in various places are all a failure in SL Here the same -DIST morphology is used for "various places". [This may be perhaps be considered a polysemy for the lexeme "DISTRIB", which carries aspect when verbal. E.g. "repeatedly" vs "in repeated places", or "many times" vs "many places"]. Usually IPSL does not distinguish between singular or plural, i.e. all signs may be interpreted as having either Sing or Pl feference depending on context or co-occurrence with numeral signs or quantifiers. Only a plural form for "BACCA" (child) occurs with some frequency and is the only separate PL form in the ABSA (Karachi school for the deaf) dictionary. 67 ITERATIVE - "every", again, etc. repeated in the same place - [Can we consider it the same morpheme, repeated in space is distributed spatially, whereas in time is the same space?] 68-9 HUKUMAT MAN-NA LENA-ITER Government obeys (them because) they always get (money from them) [?COMPOUND VERBS? It appears that both paisa and dena is iterated? or is it only dena?] COLD_DRINK PAISA +DENA-ITER cold-drink money-give-ITER cold-drink (makers) spend money (on this) all the time. 69 GRADUAL ASPECT the sign proceeds in stages. signs for BARA-HONA (grow up), BARHNA (grow), TARAQQI (progress, develop), TANAZZUL (decline, deteriorate), KAM-HONA (reduce, lessen) are the only signs to employ the gradual aspect. E.g. though SHIKHANA (teach) has a straight movement that might easily be adjusted to take a gradual form, "learn gradually" is not expressed through aspectual modificn.
Preface xi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Indopakistan Sign Language (IPSL) 1
1.2 Data 8
1.3 Transcription Conventions 12
2 The Signs 17
2.1 Handshapes 17
2.1.1 Basic Handshapes 18
2.1.2 Central Handshapes 21
2.1.3 Marginal Handshapes 23
2.1.4 Problematic Cases 24
2.1.5 Meaningful Handshapes 26
2.2 Sign Families 28
2.2.1 Opposites 28
2.2.2 Signs Related by Common Handshape 29
2.2.3 Signs Related by Common Place of Articulation 30
2.2.4 Componential Signs 33
2.3 Extraneous Influences on IPSL 35
2.3.1 IPSL and Hindi/Urdu 35
2.3.2 IPSL and English 36
2.3.3 IPSL and Gestures 38
2.3.4 IPSL and Other Sign Languages 40
2.4 Nonmanual Components of Signs 42
2.4.1 Mouth Pattern, Mouth Gesture and Facial Expression 42
2.4.2 Body Posture, Head Position and Eye Gaze 44
2.4.3 A Nonmanual Parameter? 45
2.5 Iconicity 50
2.5.1 The Role of Iconicity in Sign Languages 50
2.5.2 Iconic signs 51
2.5.3 Pantomimic Modification 53
3 Morphology 55
3.1 Word Classes 55
3.2 Directionality 57
3.3 Aspects 62
3.3.1 Completive Aspect 62
3.3.2 Aspectual Modulation 65
3.4 Complex Signs 72
3.4.1 Numeral Incorporation 73
3.4.2 LENA: ‘take’ and DENA: ‘give’ 75
3.4.3 Fusion 79
3.4.4 Compounds 82
4 Syntax 87
4.1 Word Order 88
4.1.1 Predicates and Participants 88
4.1.2 Temporal Expressions 91
4.1.3 Function Signs 92
4.1.4 Modifying Constructions 97
4.2 Localization 99
4.2.1 Loci 99
4.2.2 Directionality 102
4.2.3 Positioning 103
4.2.4 Index 105
4.2.5 Eye Gaze 107
4.2.6 Role Play 108
4.2.7 Inconsistencies 109
4.3 Nonmanual Syntax 110
4.3.1 Affirmation and Negation 111
4.3.2 Interrogatives 115
4.3.3 Conditional Clauses 117
5 Discourse Strategies 121
5.1 Contrasts 121
5.2 Use of the Left Hand 123
5.3 Perspective 126
Bibliography 131
Appendix A 137
Appendix B 147
Index 175
... based on research collected in Karachi focusing on Indo-Pakistani sign language. It examines topics from basic, central, and problematic handshpaes, to sign families, extraneous influences on the sign language, morphology such as word classes, directionaility, aspectual modulation and numeral incorporation, as well as syntax including word order, localization, and nonmanual syntax. This extensive corpus of research should be of interest to all researchers in the field of linguistics, with particular emphasis on sign language.