Difference between British Sign Language and English - Essay Example

Difference between British sign language and English Introduction British sign language is the sign language used throughout the United Kingdom. It is usually the preferred and first language of the deaf of the UK. According to a survey carried out in the United Kingdom, there are over 125,000 deaf adults in the UK and slightly over 20,000 children, and they use the BSL as a mode of communication. Apart from the deaf, other users of the BSL are the hearing relatives of the deaf and signers and also the local community that comes into contact with the deaf people. As stated by other linguists like Kyle and Woll (1985:31), that the order of BSL signs is remarkably different from the order of English language. This is because everything in BSL including the phonetics defines elements such as the hand shape, location, motion and orientation. However in English it is different in that the phonetics of English language are defined by the phonologic characteristics like voicing; that which makes the sounds either silent or voiced, also the lip shape, and the position of the tongue. From other studies in linguistics, people have also established that the English language follows a given order of the three main components of a sentence; subject, object and predicate. However, the grammar of BSL is different whereby the order used is the topic-comment structure of a sentence. In BSL also, some words are treated as different parts of the sentence as it ends up splitting a sentence in to different parts. For example, in a sentence like; why was the brown cow eating grass in your garden yesterday? When we translate this into BSL, then the order of the sentence will follow the order of; timeline, location, object, subject, verb, and finally the question. Thus in BSL the sentence will be, yesterday your garden grass brown cows eat why?, These are some of the differences between BSL and English. It is said that at there is a significant difference between the British sign language and the English language. Some of the main points to consider when considering these differences between BSL and English language can be looked at from different perspectives. A. Word order According to( Sutton-Spence and Woll 1999) an example like; i take some plates from the table if this sentence is translated into English, the order of the sentence changes. As stated earlier, BSL has the structure of topic-comment whereby the main topic is placed first, and the doer comes at the end of the sentence. In this sentence then, the main topical subjects are a table’ and plate’ and the doer of the action is ‘I’. the I in the sentence comes at the end of the sentence, and it is equal to pointing in BSL. In BSL also, when referring to the verb, it is clear that the verb serves as an agreement which gives more information about the person and number of the subject and indirect object. In BSL, all this is marked by the direction of the movement of the verb in the syntactic signing space whereby the sentence begins at the object signing space and ends at the location of the subject. In this case also, there is the show of plurals by repetition of a movement depending on what is put in the plural. At times, the shape and the placement of the object on a surface can be emphasized by the use of the hand shape. Further facial expressions are also useful in providing adverbial information. In the long run, the sentence transcribed in English, and it will be:’ Table Plates I ‘. B. Semantic representation In BSL, according to (Kamp and reyle 1993) there is the use of discourse representation structures which they help in the better understanding and transcription of sign language. Here, the Drs help in the isolation of sentence components in a sentence, and are different in sign language. These include words that indicate tense.BSL semantic representation differs from English language in that these components represent sign language by the use of time line in the signing space. This may include the use of facial expressions to indicate a certain situation. C. Verb argument structure The verbs in different sentence structures form the semantic core of a sentence and the ability to understand the meaning of the verb, there must be use of other agents like the objects and subjects. Verbs, therefore, take different structures. For instance, there are transitive verbs, which take a direct object to enhance the meaning, and intransitive verbs that do not take any object to complete the meaning. In BSL, thus, the semantic interaction basis with the verb is on the transitive and intransitive verb pattern whereby there are eventful and stative verbs. In BSL, intransitive frames can be filled with both stative or eventful verbs while transitive verbs are spatial sign space, and the movements are in relation to the signers own body. This is further associates with the role of the agent in the event description. Grammatical and morphological differences D. correspondence between sign and word There is no clear correspondence between a word and a sign. In the English language, the spelling and pronunciation is easy to give the intended meaning, but BSL does not have conventional way of representing such words into sign language. Phrases like ‘up until now’ are common to the English language, but in BSL, it becomes difficult to express such phrases in a signed direction. Further these phrases will need to be separated so as to be interpreted in accordance to what each word means. For instance in a representation of the phrase in BSL, the signer will need to start by transcribing the words in to English whereby the object of the phrase will come first, and the subject will come at the end. Then, the signer will give a sign that interprets the meaning into BSL, which might not be in accordance to the initial intended meaning of the speaker. E. Expression of interrogative and negatives There are different aspects of negation and interrogation in sign language. Some signs for interrogatives have developed recently, and is influenced by the presence of signed English. In sign language, when we talk of generic interrogative, we aim at discussing the fairly new ways of negation whereby the main signs are whereby we have hands turned palm upwards with small sideways movement away from the centre. This though, somehow corresponds with the gestures used by nondeaf English speakers whereby they use it to express uncertainty. This also expresses questions like what, where, when, how, why and some other enquiring phrases like what for, what kind, what happened. In English, however, we can not use same words to ask different questions. For instance, it would be difficult to ask a person where are you going’ using the interrogative what or why. This difference thus, comes about only in BSL because there is integration of signs, whereby the interrogatives can be used interchangeably, depending on the sentence. There are also conventional interrogatives, which combine with non interrogative signs, and content question nonmanual signs. For example in sign language if one wants to know whether one is doing ok, could only use one word like Healthy without an interrogative sign and non manuals. This would be used to express questions like’ are you well? how are you? In expressing negatives, there are combinations of lexical negators, nonmanual signs, morphological inflections or use of family of signs that depict negative meaning. In sign language, as opposed to English language, negation is marked by a simple movement of the head in sideways and returning to the centre (Spence and Woll 1999). Also, negation is emphasized by closed lips drawn down at the corners with chin tensed. It could also be emphasized by the head pulled back, and the brows furrowed to express an idea of negativity to show disagreement. In a situation, where the negative is at the end of a sentence, then Sutton- Spence and Boyes Bream (2001) argue that the sign for nothing is accompanied by a mouth gesture which consists of protrusion of the tongue between teeth. Sutton-Spence and Woll 1999; 74 also talks of post clausal negation in BSL whereby the head shake occurs at the end of the sentence without a manual sign. F. Use of tenses Clearly, BSL does not use tenses to denote time. BSL expresses time metaphorically as opposed to a given set of signs developed to express tense. This is through the movement of some individual signs within an area of the space used for signing. For instance, to depict the future, there is use of the area in front of the signers’ dominant shoulder or around the cheek area. The area behind the signers shoulder use it metaphorically, to refer to the past and to the present, then the area used is that which lies immediately before the signer with appropriate hand movement. Also, use of signs to depict time like today, yesterday, tomorrow or even some occasions at a time. All these present the metaphorical movement of the hands inside the signing space as opposed to the development of certain signs to depict the English tenses. The tenses in sign language are specifically, now, in the future, in the past, way in the future, and the way in the past or recently in the past as opposed to the English tenses which are present, future, past, and their participles. G. Plurality Plurals in BSL are denoted by quantity, and the noun remains the same. For instance, the first person plural has a unique status, whereby the notion of the first person x in its plural to mean something more than x. although the plural indicate s more than x,when it comes to signing, it does not indicate more than one signer, but rather it indicates the relation of the speaker or signer and other addressees. More plurals also indicate the ways of signing which indicate more than one person involved in an action.(Lyons 1968) here also plurals are marked by pointing signs that are in a series indicating the starting or the ending point f a statement. This is done by starting the sign from a different point, and pointing towards the chest of the signer to a place that indicates a given number of individuals. Plurals are also marked in pronouns whereby they are marked by different shapes of the hand,. For example, when talking of “two of us in BSL, then the hand take a v-hand shape and it moves between the signer and the referent. H. Content words and articles. English language is rich and is said to have many aspects of speech which make communication easier and understandable. The most common ones are the uses of articles; which are the definite articles, the, and the indefinite articles a, an. These are used to show specificity or lack of it. However, this specificity is not found in sign language and specifically, BSL. Another feature is the lack of much or none at all of the functional words. In accordance to research, BSL has heavily been influenced by the English language, and it has become difficult to hands spell or sign spell some functional word s in the language. Functional words add to the grammatical structure of a language and in this case English. These words are usually short, and since word length affects visual reception, they cannot be perceived readily by the help of reading the lips.(Taafe and Wong,1957; Erber ,1971) Also, since BSL uses two handed finger spelling, it would become extremely difficult to apply a singly handed sign, like the ones used to represent functional words. This will end up violating the natural rule of two independently moving hands having identical shapes.(Battison,1974). The same case applies to the use of articles, in the BSL whereby they are extremely short to be incorporated in the sign language, since they would make it hard for the deaf people to read the lips ad distinguish them from the rest of the sentence. I. Visual coding This is mostly used among the deaf than in hearing people. This is used to enable them to understand the spelling of words and thus help in decoding the information represented via sign language. In this situation thus, deaf sign language makes use of certain signs to show the relation with the elements being discussed. Although the users of BSL use sign language to communicate within their cohorts, at times it also becomes essential to use sign language to communicate with purely English speakers using the sign languages to make it easier to understand. This is code switch whereby they use MCE which is a code that is known to speakers of English. Some examples of sentences translated from English to BSL are; E.g. 1. Take some mugs from the table. This sentence is realized in a different way when it comes to BSL word order. Some parts of the sentence are dropped from the sentence, and it leaves only the subject and the object in the sentence. Table Mug Take will be the sentence in BSL and incorporates the signs used. E.g. 2. The child was bitten This depicts the transitive and intransitive verbs. In BSL, it will be translated to show just the action taking place and the reaction of the child on being bitten. Thus, the sentence will have one word and an expression on the face and a shudder of the shoulders to show the pain she felt. Therefore; Bite Eg3. The man kicked it. This in relation to the transitivity rule will be transcribed into a generalized statement including just the doer of the action and the action being done, therefore; MAN Kick; Conclusion In this paper I have discussed the possible translation of the BSL language to English language, and it is clear that sign language has its differences with the ordering of the English language. Although it is different in semantic ordering, extraction of semantics from syntax, verb representation and also the use of pronouns, BSL is easily understood when translated to English. This is because only the main pointers of the message in the sentence are represented in sign language. Therefore, it could be concluded that despite the many differences that have been stated by earlier linguists regarding BSL and English language, it does not necessarily mean that it is not entirely impossible to understand sign language. Understanding sign language depends on the amount of effort placed in understanding the signs used. References A. Baker, B. van den Bogaerde & O. Crasborn (eds.),(2000) Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research Branson, Jan & Miller, Don (1998), Nationalism and the Linguistic Rights of Deaf Communities: Linguistic Imperialism and the Recognition and Development of Sign Languages., Journal of Sociolinguistics 2 (1), 3-34. Bates, E, Bretherton, I. and Snyder(1998) From First Two Words to Grammar: Individual Differences and Social Mechanisms. New York: CUP Kamp, H and Reyle U. (1993),From Discourse to Logic. Introduction to Model Theoritics Semantics of Natural Language, Formal logic and discourse representation Theory. Kluwer Academic publishers .Dordrecht Jeanes, R., Reynolds, B. & Coleman, B (Eds) (1989) Dictionary of Australasian Signs (2nd Edition), Paget Gorman Signed Speech Full Manual (1990). Northumberland: STASS Publications Sutton-Spence .R and Woll B. 1999. The linguistics of British sign language. An introduction ,University press, Cambridge. Tomasello, M (1992).First Verbs, a Case study of Early Grammatical Development . Cambridge; CUP V McKee, D. & G. Kennedy (2000): A Lexical Comparison of Signs from American, Australian, and New Zealand Sign Languages, in Emmorey, K. & H. Lane SDC Melbourne Read More