Presently, there are an estimated 400 - 500,000 Deaf people in South Africa. They use South African Sign Language (SASL) as their language of choice and medium of communication. Therefore, they form part of the South African Deaf Community (DeafSA, 1997)7. Even though most of the readings are from other countries, I will apply them to SASL. Since more than 90% of Deaf children are born into hearing families of different linguistic and ethnic communities, schools for Deaf children were established on the basis of the spoken language of each ethnic group. Nevertheless, SASL as a unified language exists in most of these schools8.
South African Sign Language is a natural human language used by Deaf South Africans. SASL makes use of a visual modality. This means that SASL is a visual-spatial language - perceived by the eyes, and produced with the hands, face, and upper body. Spoken languages, on the other hand, are conveyed via sound, perceived by the ears, and produced by the voice; hence, they take place using an aural-oral modality. (Valli and Lucas, 1998; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999.)
It must be acknowledged that SASL is not simply a variation of some universal signed language. There is a primary misconception that there is a universal signed language used by Deaf people. Signed languages are not universal. Just as hearing people in different countries speak different languages, so Deaf people around the world use different signed languages (Smith et al, 1988).
Lane, H. (1992) Mask of Benevolence
Padden, C. & T. Humphries (1988) Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture Lane, H., Hoffmeister, R. & B. Bahan (1996) Journey into a Deaf World Ladd, P. (2003) Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood 7
The statistics can be arguably incorrect according to Glaser et al. (2004). 8
Valli and Lucas (1998) and Sutton-Spence and Woll (1999) go on to explain that, like spoken languages, signed languages have their own phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic processes. That signed languages have their own grammatical structure equal in complexity to that of any spoken languages can be seen in the following example: The English sentence ‘A cat sits on a mat’ is signed the following way in SASL:
MAT CAT SIT-ON9
Signed languages do not use the article ‘a’, the agreement marker ‘s’, and the preposition ‘on’ as well as the English grammatical structure of Subject-Verb- Object (SVO). When signing the sentence, the sign MAT, is placed in the front of the body at chest level, that is, the neutral signing space. Another sign, CAT, is then placed on MAT. Hence, MAT CAT SIT-ON would be the gloss of the signed sentence. This shows that signed languages are complete and separate; they are different languages from English and any other spoken languages. Signed languages use the grammatical structure of Object- Subject-Verb (OSV). It is important to note that Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) is also common in the grammar of signed languages (Valli and Lucas, 1998; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999), depending on discourse and context.
In addition to grammatical structures that are equivalent to those of spoken languages, Deaf people use facial expressions and head movements while they sign. These are called "non-manual features," and they are not just emotive and expressive, but also have grammatical functions. In English, one uses vocal intonation to mark sentence types such as to ask a question, make a negative statement, or to emphasise a point; a signer uses non-manual features for the same purposes as well as other purposes (Valli and Lucas, 1998:144; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999:73).
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Glossing is used to write the English word closest to the signs. However, they can be very far from conveying its meaning. For example, the SASL sentence ME STAY-HOME would mean ‘I am unemployed’ in English. Glosses are written in CAPITALS. For more details, see Lane, H. Hoffmeister, R. and B. Bahan (1996) Journey into a Deaf World, pp. 44
One example of such non-manual features is when a question requires a simple yes or no answer such as in a question like "Would you like tea?" When asking a yes/no question in English, one raises the voice. In signed languages, e.g. SASL, a signer would raise the eyebrows, lean the head forward, hold the last sign in the sentence and maintain eye contact:
_y/n TEA
To represent this in written form, the line is drawn above each sentence and the ‘y/n’ representing ‘yes/no question’ is added at the end, which indicates that the signer raises the eyebrows when asking the yes/no question. (Valli and Lucas, 1998:144; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999:66-7.)
Another example is when a wh-word question (who, what, where, when, etc.) is used, such as, “What is your name?” it requires a statement for an answer. When asking a wh-word question in English, a speaker lowers the voice when asking a wh-question. In signed languages, e.g. SASL, a signer would lower the eyebrows, lean the head forward, hold the last sign in the sentence, and maintain eye contact.
_____________wh NAME YOU WHAT
Because the signer lowers the eyebrows when asking the wh-questions, the line is drawn above WHAT and WHERE and the ‘wh’, representing ‘wh- question’, is added at the end. (Valli and Lucas, 1998:144; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999:68-9.)
In addition to questions, we also have the following two sentence types that have importance in SASL: negation and topicalisation. Like English, signed languages use negative sentences. A positive sentence can change into a negative sentence through the process of negation. For example, the English sentence ‘The dog is not eating’ can be signed as follows:
_____neg DOG EAT
In signed languages, e.g SASL, a signer shakes the head and frowns or squints throughout the statement. Because the signer shakes the head when stating the sentence, a line is drawn above the sentence and the ‘neg’ representing ‘negation’ is added at the end. (Valli and Lucas, 1998:144; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999:72-3.)
To emphasise a point, the process of topicalisation occurs in signed languages when the object of a sentence is moved to the beginning of the sentence. The English sentence, ‘The mother fed the boy’ can be topicalised in the following SASL sentence:
___t
BOY MOTHER FEED FINISH
A signer raises the eyebrows, leans the head backward, and pauses briefly. Because the signer would pause briefly when signing BOY, the line is drawn above BOY and the ‘t’ representing topicalisation is added at the end. This sentence can be more accurately translated in English as ‘As for the boy, the mother fed him’ (Valli and Lucas, 1998:144; Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999:59-62). Please note that topicalisation is very common in signed languages since they are visual languages.
On a phonological level, spoken languages use voice, lips, tongue and mouth to form words. For example, the smallest phonemes for the English word ‘bat’ would be b/a/t. SASL on the other hand uses hands, body, and space to form signs. Stokoe (1965; 1976) coined the word ‘cheremes’ for these three terms as opposed to phonemes. For example, when signing MAT, two flat hands (formally called flat-B handshape) are placed in front of a signer and then moved sideways in opposite directions at the same time from the centre (point a) to the left side (point b) for the left hand and from the centre (point a) to the
right side (point c) for the right hand. The palm orientation faces downward (Valli and Lucas, 1998). This is a simultaneous sign because both hands have the same handshape, palm orientation and location. The following table is drawn up to give a clear picture of what the sign MAT looks like:
Table 2.2: The Movement-Hold Model by Liddell and Johnson (1989)
Left-hand Hold Movement Hold
Handshape: Flat hand Flat hand Flat hand
Location: In the neutral space in front of the chest
In the neutral space in front of the chest toward the left side
In the neutral space in front of the chest toward the left side
Palm Orientation: Downward Downward Downward
Right-hand Hold Movement Hold
Handshape: Flat hand Flat hand Flat hand
Location: In the neutral space in front of the chest
In the neutral space in front of the chest toward the right side
In the neutral space in front of the chest toward the right side
Palm Orientation: Downward Downward Downward
Like all spoken languages, signed languages are capable of expressing abstract ideas. Signers can discuss a wide range of subjects such as politics, philosophy or sarcasm. Signed languages can express poetry and communicate humour. Furthermore, in response to cultural and technological development, the community is constantly introducing new lexical items.
Distinctive from, and not to be confused with, signed languages is fingerspelling. Fingerspelling is a system using conventional handshapes to form the letters of an alphabet to spell out spoken words on one's hand(s). When two languages co-exist in any community, the majority language may influence the language of the minority. Therefore, English, for example, influences signed languages in that they adopt fingerspelled English words (Baker-Shenk and Cokely, 1980:114-5). The influence can apply to other languages, i.e., fingerspelled isiZulu or French. In general, fingerspelling is
used to give proper nouns and titles - the names of people, cities and provinces, titles of movies or books, and brand names. It is emphasised that fingerspelling is not a substitute for signing (Smith, et al. 1988:33). However, SASL does create new signs by representing the symbols of written English with SASL signs. This process is referred to lexicalised fingerspelling signs (Battison, 1978). To exemplify, the following fingerspelled SASL signs for English words such as ‘okay’, ‘automatic teller machine’ and ‘First National Bank’ are #OK, #ATM, and #FNB10. These are regularly used acronyms.
It is important to note that there has been a claim made by hearing educators and professionals that there are several different South African Sign Languages (see Penn, 1992). Aarons and Akach in their research (2002) have found this claim to be incorrect. Since SASL is my first language and I use it fluently, I am also in position to say that SASL is, indeed, one language with regional variants. However, more research is needed because a vast amount of work needs to be done on structural and interpretative parts of the language: morphology, syntax, semantics and their variations to provide further scientific evidence. Moreover, some SASL signs on a phonological level have been influenced by other signed languages and continue to borrow from them from time to time. Such signs are BORED, SARCASTIC, and COFFEE which are borrowed from American Sign Language. These borrowings, have, inter alia, led to sign variations within a single signed language, SASL. This pattern parallels other spoken languages. For instance, in South African English, the isiZulu word ‘yebo’ and Afrikaans word ‘ja’ are used. These words mean yes. All languages borrow from adjacent languages.
Furthermore, after the apartheid period, Deaf people from different ethnic backgrounds mingled and exchanged signs. This has led to a growth towards standardisation of SASL in the last twelve years. The evidence can be obtained from the national-level meetings of the Deaf Federation of South
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Africa11. Since 1995, two-thirds of the executive committee are Deaf members who represent different provinces. They all understand one another. This strongly indicates that there is a large degree of standardisation in SASL. However, further research in this field needs to be scientifically conducted.
In spite of all the above, signed languages have been misunderstood and oppressed for many centuries. During the 1960s, the late William Stokoe, a hearing linguist and the American founder of Sign Linguistics, made it clear that signed language was indeed a natural human language. It has all the linguistic features that exist in any other language such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and so on. This was a milestone in the history of signed language and has led to changes in the fields of education, linguistics and the social sciences everywhere in the world (Sacks, 1989:77- 80).