Contact Sign

Contact Sign is a contact language that arises between a Deaf sign language and a spoken language (or the written or Manually Coded form of the spoken language). Contact languages also arise between different sign languages, although the term pidgin rather than 'Contact Sign' is usually used to describe such phenomena.

Language contact

Language contact is extremely common in most Deaf communities, which are almost always located within a dominant spoken language ("Hearing") culture. For example, communication between hearing parents and deaf children, or deaf students and hearing teachers, often results in a signing style that is a "mid-way point" between the signed and the spoken language, or a blend of the two. It can also occur when interpreting from one language to the other, and is sometimes the main form of language used by deaf people who learn a sign language as a second language in adolescence or adulthood. Deaf people may use Contact Signing with Hearing people even when they are fluent signers; Deaf parents have been observed using Contact Sign with their hearing children, even though the sign language is the child's native language.

While deaf sign languages are distinct from spoken languages, with a different vocabulary and grammar, a boundary between the two is often hard to draw. A language 'continuum' is often described between signing with a strongly sign-language grammar to signing with a strongly spoken-language grammar, the middle-regions of which are often described as Contact Sign (or Pidgin Sign). In a conversation between a native signer and a second-language learner, both conversation partners may be signing at different ends of the spectrum. A blend that is often seen is vocabulary from the sign language signed in the word order of the spoken language, with a simplified or reduced grammar typical of contact languages.

Linguistic features of language contact

Ceil Lucas and Clayton Valli (1992) note several differences between the language contact arising between two sign languages, and the contact phenomena that arise between a signed and a spoken language. When two sign languages meet, the expected contact phenomena occur — lexical borrowing, foreign "accent," interference, code switching, pidgins, creoles, and mixed systems. However, between a sign language and a spoken language, while lexical borrowing and code switching also occur, the interface between the spoken and signed modes produces unique phenomena: fingerspelling (see below), fingerspelling/sign combination, initalisation, CODA talk (see below), TTY conversation, mouthing and contact signing.

Long-term contact with spoken languages has generated a large influence on the vocabulary and grammar of sign languages. Loan translations are common, such as the American Sign Language signs BOY and FRIEND forming a compound meaning "boyfriend", or the Auslan partial-calque DON'T MIND, which involves the sign for the noun MIND combined with an upturned palm, which is a typical Auslan negation. At what point a loan-translation becomes fully acceptable and considered as "native" (rather than Contact Signing) is a matter over which native signers will differ in opinion. This process appears to be very common in those sign languages that have been best documented, such as American Sign Language, British Sign Language, and Auslan. In these cases, signers are increasingly bilingual in both a sign and a "spoken" language (or visual forms of it) as the Deaf signing community's literacy levels increase. In such bilingual communities, loan translations are common enough that deeper grammatical structures may also borrowed — in this case, from the spoken language. This is known as metatypy. Malcolm Ross writes:

Usually, the language undergoing metatypy (the modified language) is emblematic of its speakers’ identity, whilst the language which provides the metatypic model is an inter-community language. Speakers of the modified language form a sufficiently tightknit community to be well aware of their separate identity and of their language as a marker of that identity, but some bilingual speakers, at least, use the inter-community language so extensively that they are more at home in it than in the emblematic language of the community. (Ross. 1999: 7, 1)

Some populations with a high proportion of deaf people have developed sign languages that are used by both hearing and deaf people in the community, such as Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, Yucatec Maya Sign Language, Adamorobe Sign Language and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. It is unclear what kind of language contact phenomena (if any) occur in such environments.

Fingerspelling

One of the most striking contact sign phenomena is fingerspelling, in which a writing system is represented with manual signs. In those sign languages where such a system exists, the manual alphabet is structurally quite different from the more "native" grammatical forms, which are often spatial, visually motivated, and multilayered. Manual alphabets facilitate the input of new terms such as technical vocabulary from the dominant spoken language of the region, and allow a transliteration of phrases, names, and places. They may also be used for function words such as "at", "so" or "but".

Pidgin Sign English

The phrase Pidgin Sign English (PSE, sometimes "Pidgin Signed English") is often used to describe the different contact languages that arise between the English language and either British Sign Language, New Zealand Sign Language, Auslan or American Sign Language, but the term is increasingly falling out of favor.

CODA talk

Contact phenomena have been observed in the reverse direction, from a sign language to a spoken language. Hearing adults who grew up in Deaf signing households (Children of Deaf Adults, CODAs) sometimes communicate with each other in spoken and written English while knowingly using ASL loan translations and underlying grammatical forms. (Bishop 2005).

References

Ann, J. (1998). Contact between a sign language and a written language: Character signs in Taiwan Sign Language. In C. Lucas (ed.). "Pinky Extension and Eye Gaze: Language Use in Deaf Communities". Washington (DC): Gallaudet University Press.
Lucas, Ceil / Valli, Clayton: Language contact in the American deaf community. New York, San Francisco, London : Academic Pr. 1992 - xviii, 161 p. (see also Ceil Lucas, Language contact phenomena in deaf communities, Estudios de Sociolingüística (PDF available for download here)
Reilly, Judy S. / McIntire, Marina L.: ASL and Pidgin Sign English: What's the difference? In: "Sign Language Studies" 9: 27 (1980) - pp. 151-192
Woodward, James: Some characteristics of Pidgin Sign English. In: "Sign Language Studies" 2: 3 (1973) - pp. 39-46
Cokely, Dennis Richard: When is a Pidgin not a Pidgin? An alternate analysis of the ASL-English contact situation. In: "Sign Language Studies" 12: 38 (1983) - pp. 1-24
Supalla, T., & Webb, R. (1995). The grammar of international sign: A new look at pidgin languages. In K. Emmorey & J. Reilly (Eds.), Language, gesture and space (pp. 333-352). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Barbara Luetke-Stahlman, Three PSE studies: Implications for educators, In M.P. Moeller (Ed.), Proceedings: Issues in Language and Deafness (1993). Omaha, NE: Boys Town National Research Hospital.
Ross, Malcolm D. (1997). Social networks and kinds of speech-community event. In R. Blench & M. Spriggs (Eds.), Archaeology and language 1: Theoretical and methodological orientations (pp. 209-261). London: Routledge.
Bishop, Michele. (2005). Orange Eyes: Bimodal Bilingualism in Hearing Adults from Deaf Families. Sign Language Studies - Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2005, pp. 188-230. Gallaudet University Press

Sign languages Pidgins and creoles