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

> The inverse question is also fair to explore: What need would the hearing
> community have for maintaining an articulatory subsystem in addition to a
> robust oral system already complemented by minimal body language?

Mhmm, I was mostly arguing in the other direction, that a robust oral system
should be complemented by a sign language in an interesting and interactive
but why they shouldn't mix is important too.

The more channels required for a language, the more body systems have to be
> reserved for language that could be used for other things. Certainly full
> fluency in BOTH a spoken language AND an articulatory language carries the
> advantage that either of two systems could be used (hence, whichever isn't
> currently in use, or whichever is easier), but having a single language that
> uses both speech and gesture seems unnecessarily burdensome.
>
I think it's burdensome, but less burdensome than learning two languages.
Suppose you're a hearing adult who has never learned any sign language, then
it is going to be hard for you to pick up sign language as "a handy tool" to
complement your oral abilities. (The same thing works for native sign
language speakers, but our society presses on them a lot more to learn a
spoken language; you get the idea.) If your native language has a signed
component integrated into it, then you're that much a head of the game,
since you don't need to learn two different sets of vocabulary, grammar, and
so on.

Additionally, in cases where there are obstacles to one channel, it makes
> sense to use another channel. For instance, in the dark, oral communication
> is useful; on opposite sides of glass or a crowded area, gestural
> communication is useful. But what would be the motivation for having a mixed
> communication system with both oral and gestural requirements, which could
> then not be used in the dark nor on opposite sides of a large field?

This makes sense. If your language is forced to be used in both modes
simultaneously, you're double screwed in these cases. The rant I posted was
in favour of a mixed-mode language, but it seems as though this is
practically impracticable (unless anyone wants to convince me otherwise).


> I would think that it would be more logical for a natural language to have
> a parallel gestural system, just as we have written language for times when
> speech is not a useful channel, as opposed to a mixed gesture/speech system.

Mhmm -  The question remains now, how to make that parallel interesting and
practical. There's a lot of possibilities to take into account here, and I'm
really not sure how to proceed. I don't want the two parallel languages to
be relexes of each other, but making them coexist in a non-trivial way is
tricky.


> -- Paul
>

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