BSL in its Social Context
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BSL in its Social Context
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Session 5: Regional Dialect
By now it should be very
clear that we can define British Sign Language by saying that it is "the language
used by British deaf people". Its
vocabulary is different from all other sign languages, so
that other sign languages are "mutually unintelligible". However, we have seen that mutual
unintelligibility is not always a very useful defining features of a separate language
because some sign languages are historically related to each other, making them more
similar to each other than to languages that are not related. In a similar way, some
spoken languages are related. If you know
German, you have a good chance of being able to read Dutch, to which German is closely
related. If you know Spanish, you can read
Portuguese fairly easily, again, because the two languages are related. However, knowing Dutch and German will do you
little good if you try to read Finnish, to which neither is related. Knowing Spanish and Portuguese will leave you
totally unprepared to deal with Basque. We can see the same
pattern in sign languages. For example,
French Sign Language (LSF) is related historically to American Sign Language, so that
signers from LSF can recognise many signs in ASL. Australian
Sign Language (Auslan) is closely related to BSL, because of the close ties between the
two countries, and BSL signers can understand Auslan fairly easily. This is also the case of some variants of South
African Sign Language (where the links with England have been stronger in the past). Other South African variants are strongly
influenced by ISL. Users of Scandinavian sign
languages are reported to be able to understand each other fairly well, again because the
languages have a common history. We should
note, though, that some sign languages can be geographically close but not be related. Although BSL is a
distinct language, and noticeably different from other national sign languages, we have
seen that it is not a single, homogeneous entity. We
have seen that British signers do not all sign in exactly the same way because of the
identity of the signers. One part of their
identity might be where they come from, and this might be reflected in their regional
dialects. These are what most
people think of as "dialects", even though in linguistics social dialects are
just as important as regional dialects.
Research done in Bristol
a few years ago took a selection of English words and gave them to signers around the
country. The regions we chose were Glasgow,
Newcastle, Manchester, London and Bristol. We
interviewed men and women, of over 60, 40 to 60 and under 40, so that we got a range of
ages as well. We wrote the words we had
chosen on cards, and then showed each person the cards.
This was to avoid influencing them with our signs. We chose specific groups of words: some were words
that are central to BSL (like DEAF, HEARING, INTERPRETER), some that are everyday words
(like BRITISH, BUSINESS, THEATRE) and some that have come into BSL recently (like
DISCRIMINATION, COMMUNITY). There were
regional differences in the signs they gave. In
some semantic areas, signs vary greatly by region, including signs for colour terms, days
of the week and numbers and counting. This all looked at the
production of signs. We also showed them
signs that other people in other regions had used and asked them if they recognised them. Sometimes they knew them but wouldn't use them
themselves. We didn't only use
interviews. We also looked at the See Hear!
programmes from 1981 to 1988 (we did the research in 1989) and looked for regional
variations there, too. This wasn't much good
for vocabulary items, but we were able to look at one linguistic variable: the use of
fingerspelling. When we looked at the
fingerspelling used by all the signers on See Hear! over eight years, we could see that
there were very clear regional variations in the amount used. This is all very
interesting and useful in itself. It is
important for anyone wanting a good command of BSL to know regional variations of signs. It is important for interpreters to know what
someone means when they use a different regional sign.
It is equally as important for sign teachers to recognise and be tolerant of
other people's signs, and just to say "Oh, that's your sign; this is mine; this is a
sign that many people know around Britain" rather than being critical of a sign. It is also important just to collect and record
different regional signs, in order to appreciate the exciting variation within BSL. However, in linguistics,
we don't have to stop at collecting and describing different regional signs. We also have to consider why regional signs exist. ? Pause for a moment and
think of some reasons why people from different areas use different varieties of the same
language. Or, maybe, ask yourself the same
question, “backwards”: why do varieties of language sometimes not vary in
different regions? In general, there are two
major ideas about why dialects of languages vary between regions: a) isolation and
spontaneous evolution b) mixing with different
languages One theory is that there
was once a single dialect of a language, but then the users of that language spread out. They got further apart, and eventually they
lost touch with each other. Spontaneous
changes occurred in the language in one area but didn't spread to the other areas because
of the distance involved. It is often
observed that large physical barriers (eg seas, mountains, deserts etc) cut populations
off and so the dialects spontaneously evolve. This
is an argument that is put about concerning English, especially British and American
English. Once the two dialects were the same,
but the Atlantic Ocean kept the two speakers apart and any spontaneous changes on one side
of the Atlantic were not copied on the other side. This
theory is based on Darwin's ideas of evolution of life on earth. Darwin proposed that small spontaneous changes
constantly happened, at random, and that the most useful changes survived and were
perpetuated. This spontaneous
evolution is only part of the story, though, and is not necessarily the most important. Far more relevant, frequently, is the effect of
mixing with languages as they spread. For
example, Britain was settled by people speaking lots of languages (Angles, Saxons, Jutes
and Vikings from various places) so when the Normans arrived, Norman French was overlaid
onto several different languages. Similarly,
American English differs from British English especially because of the large number of
loan words that have come into the language from American Indian languages and from later
immigrants into the country. Support for this view is
that you'd expect Australia to have big regional dialects because of the huge barriers of
deserts, but actually they are all very similar. This is probably because the population
was almost exclusively from the British Isles and there was no subsequent mixing with the
local people (who either ignored the whites, or were ignored by them, or got killed...) These are the two main
theories concerning English, but we need to think that this is not necessarily what is
happening with BSL.
It is possible to say
that BSL regional dialects arose because deaf people were quite isolated, and only knew
the BSL of the people around them. There is
no way to send letters in BSL to distant places (because there is no written form), and
you couldn't use BSL on the telephone. So
when spontaneous changes arose in one dialect of BSL, no one outside the dialect area knew
about it. Now that we have national
broadcasting of BSL on television, people can see more varieties of BSL, and maybe
regional dialects are becoming more uniform. We
could say that a similar thing is happening with British English, and that dialects are
now becoming more uniform as physical and social barriers are being broken down. This is fine as a theory
to explain why dialects have not merged until recently, but it does not explain how they
arose. It suggests that there was once a
single BSL, which split up as deaf people spread throughout the land. We have no evidence that this is true, and plenty
of reason to believe that it is not true. We can also probably
dismiss the idea that regional dialects of BSL differ because of mixing with other
languages. The exception to this is that some
regional dialects of BSL are influenced by ISL, such as some Scottish and Northern Irish
dialects. The main reason for
dialect differences in BSL can probably be put down to schools where signs have been used
by children for many years, and even by the teachers.
When people left schools, they may have stopped using their school signs in
contact with deaf people from other areas, but carried on using that dialect with other
local people. If this is the main
reason for dialects, then we might expect them to become more uniform now that so many
children are mainstreamed or attend PHUs near to their homes. Another reason for
regional variations is that the sign is linked to the culture of the deaf people in that
area. For example, in Spain, many of the
signs for the months of the year are determined by the weather during each month or the
particular local festivals. This is because
the weather or festivals vary around the country. This
means that each dialect can be expected to have different signs. If we compare the Scottish sign SUNDAY that is
derived from PREACH, with the English sign that is derived from PRAY we might see a
cultural difference leading to different signs. Traditionally
Scottish ministers have preached great sermons on Sundays, in a way that is not so common
in England. Dictionaries are possibly
responsible for greater uniformity of sign language dialects now. If a regional sign does not get into a dictionary
(or only with the title "regional sign") it will lose out to signs that are in
the dictionary. It is possible that users of
BSL will have two variations of BSL: one that they use when they meet people from outside
their local region, and one that they use locally. Deaf
signers are just as skilled at switching between varieties as speakers of English are. If we are to test our
theories of regional variation in BSL, we need to look for differences in dialects that we
can account for. For example, if we can see
that many dialect differences are in major core vocabulary items such as a child might
learn at school (eg colours, numbers and days of the week), we might have evidence that
much of the dialect variations arose in schools. Further,
if we found that terms used more in adult conversation are nationally more similar (eg
signs to do with employment, tax and adult health), then again we can put dialect
differences down to schools. If signs for
more recent terms do not show great regional differences (eg DISCRIMINATION, CABLE,
SATELLITE, MOBILE PHONE), we can say that this is evidence for some growing uniformity in
BSL. That is all we have time
for in the discussion of regional variants. It
is always nice to collect regional variants for signs that we know. They add colour to signing. It is important to be aware of acceptable signing,
though, and use appropriate regional signs in conversation with people of different
dialects. ? Pause
now, and make sure you are clear what we mean by a regional dialect, and why these arise. Check also that you are clear on why regional
dialects exist in BSL
As there is now greater access to different regional dialects in BSL, we might think
that the BSL or today might be more homogenous than before.
However, we know that social identity is very important in dialects. You might know the signs from another region but
that doesn’t mean that you are going to give up your own. Your own regional dialect can be a part of your
identity that you may not wish to give up. This
is the same for spoken and signed languages and ought to be a genuine concern for language
planners who wish to standardise any language.
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