Sociolinguistic variation, language change and contact in the British Sign Language (BSL) lexicon
BSL exhibits considerable regional lexical variation. Results from previous studies suggest that there has been a reduction in regional differences since the introduction of BSL on television (Woll et al., 1991) and increased regional contact (Woll, 1987). Based on these findings, this project aims to investigate lexical variation and change in BSL and its relationship to regional contact. Regional variation in the signs for colours, countries, numbers and UK place names were analysed from the BSL Corpus Project data (Schembri et al., under review) to consider their correlation with signersâ age, gender, school location, social class, ethnicity, teaching experience and language background (whether the signer has deaf or hearing parents). The results suggest that levelling may be taking place with younger signers using a decreasing variety of regionally distinct variants. Dialect contact and long-term linguistic accommodation are considered to be contributing factors in levelling (Trudgill, 1986). To investigate this as a possible explanation for language change, 25 pairs of BSL signers from different regional backgrounds were involved in a conversational âDiapixâ task (Van Engen et al., 2010) and a comprehension
Stamp, R. J.
Sociolinguistic variation, language change and contact in the British Sign Language (BSL) lexicon. BSL exhibits considerable regional lexical variation. Results from previous studies suggest that there has been a reduction in regional differences since the introduction of BSL on television (Woll et al., 1991) and increased regional contact (Woll, 1987). Based on these findings, this project aims to investigate lexical variation and change in BSL and its relationship to regional contact. Regional variation in the signs for colours, countries, numbers and UK place names were analysed from the BSL Corpus Project data (Schembri et al., under review) to consider their correlation with signersâ age, gender, school location, social class, ethnicity, teaching experience and language background (whether the signer has deaf or hearing parents). The results suggest that levelling may be taking place with younger signers using a decreasing variety of regionally distinct variants. Dialect contact and long-term linguistic accommodation are considered to be contributing factors in levelling (Trudgill, 1986). To investigate this as a possible explanation for language change, 25 pairs of BSL signers from different regional backgrounds were involved in a conversational âDiapixâ task (Van Engen et al., 2010) and a comprehension
sociolinguistic_variation language_change contact british_sign_language_bsl lexicon bsl exhibit considerable regional lexical variation previous_study suggest reduction regional_difference since introduction bsl television increase regional contact based finding project_aim investigate lexical variation_change bsl relationship regional contact regional_variation sign colour country number place_name analyse bsl corpus project data review consider correlation signer age_gender school location social_class ethnicity teach experience language background whether signer deaf_hear parent suggest levelling may_take place young signer use decrease variety regionally distinct variant dialect_contact long_term linguistic accommodation consider contributing factor level investigate possible_explanation language_change pair bsl signer different regional background involve conversational task comprehension