Re: Some thoughts on mutli-modal (signing / speech) languages and communication.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Brett Williams <mungojelly@...> wrote:
> Hmm I don't think anyone in this thread has mentioned Martha's
> Vineyard, which is a classic historical example of combining the
> modalities of speech and sign.
Parker wrote in the OP:
> Another socio-genesis of signed language could come from a deaf
> elite, or a large portion of hereditary deafness such as occurred in
> Martha's Vineyard.
However...

> I guess that says something to the questions we've been asking here,
> about whether it's possible for speech and sign to combine, and if so
> why it isn't more common.
Martha's Vineyard is not (TTBOMK) in any way an example of
multimodality; it's an example of well-spread but parallel
bilingualism.

I.e. I know of no sign/voice combination effects beyond standard sim-com.

> I can relate that directly to my own experience: I'm quite sure that
> if I had any Deaf friends, I would know ASL.
FWIW, I had no Deaf friends before knowing ASL, and my motivation to
learn ASL had nothing to do with Deafness. It was simply another
language to me.

> People do learn the few signs they
> encounter (rubbing fingers to say "money"),
ASL "money" is more like the ?Italian gesture - one clasped hand
tapping base open hand.


Also, I note that this thread has had several cases of confusing
"gesture" with "sign". The two are distinct behaviors.

Signs are linguistic - e.g. they carry aspect and tense and mode and
all the other usual features of linguistic words / utterances.

Gestures are not. While they are relatively fixed within, and
particular to, a cultural group they don't have much in the way of
linguistic features.

And Deaf people conversing in ASL do, also, use gestures just like
anyone else. :-P

(I've seen this be a source of confusion to ASL students who try to
slavishly parrot their teacher without analysis... they tend to start
thinking that random gestures or idiosyncracies are important, and
ignore differences that actually are.)

- Sai

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