Main Takeaways
Discussing morphological similarities and differences between sign and spoken languages more accurately reflects the wide range of morphological phenomena and validates the grammar of sign languages
Morphological data should be accompanied by context about the language and its users
Students should be exposed to morphological diversity in a way that enhances their understanding of the content and validates language varieties
Quick Wins
Changes you can easily implement to make a difference in your teaching and in the learning and experiences of your students
- Leverage students’ linguistic capital: Acknowledge individual and dialect variation and encourage students to share their own judgments and intuitions.
- Explicitly acknowledge linguistic discrimination: In emphasizing the linguistic equality of different language varieties, acknowledge the unequal status of varieties in society and discuss how this is rooted in factors like racism and classism.
- Be clear that morphological complexity does not reflect overall complexity of language or thought: Avoid exoticizing languages and their users by explicitly challenging the idea that the use of more or less morphologically complex words indicates differences in the complexity of thought or the validity of some languages over others.
- Contextualize the language of study and its users: Each language or variety in your course should be accompanied by at least some context about the people and communities who use that language, as well as the language’s social context.
Bigger Impact
What more can be done to have a long-term, positive impact in your teaching and on your students’ learning and experiences in linguistics?
Suggestion #1: Incorporate sign languages and discuss the role of language modality
Morphological processes can operate differently based on modality, so students should be aware of both modality-independent and modality-dependent morphological phenomena.
Why?
- Sign languages have been viewed as having no grammar or having grammar based on spoken languages, but sign language morphology is a vast field that proves the existence of autonomous sign language grammar and its important role in showcasing the full breadth of meaning formation in language
- While spoken and sign languages both have sequential and simultaneous morphology, the two modalities differ in which is most prominent, leading to much of simultaneous morphology being disregarded when sign languages are not discussed
- Every morphological phenomenon that occurs in spoken language does not have to occur in sign language, and phenomena that occur only in sign languages are equally important for students to understand as those that only occur in spoken languages
How?
- Include comparisons of phenomena and analyses between spoken and sign languages whenever you can, discussing the validity of both the similarities and the differences
- Dedicate a whole unit to sign morphology (not just a day) that explores the modality-specific features and phenomena and does not rely on each topic being tied directly to spoken language
- Discuss with students how denial of the existence of grammar in sign languages has caused those languages to be disregarded and not considered real languages, and include how sign linguists and deaf linguists in particular have fought for language representation and access
- See the Sign Languages page for more about inclusion of sign languages, the resources below for places to start regarding content, and search the resource database for “sign languages”, “corpus”, or “data sources” for data examples
Suggestion #2: Incorporate diverse languages and varieties without exoticizing them
It is important to incorporate many languages and varieties to cover different phenomena, but do so in a way that acknowledges student experiences and does not make languages come across as atypical or lesser.
Why?
- If students in the class use a language you deem as “different”, they may leave your class believing their language to be lesser or abnormal
- If students in the class use a language you deem as “typical”, they may leave your class believing their own language to be better and more normal
- Exceptions to the “norm” or to believed-universals in morphology are an opportunity for discussion about expanding our notions of language, not claiming some languages or peoples are different
How?
- Survey your students about the languages they use so you can include those languages and help to validate their study and inclusion (see Getting to Know Students for more about class surveys)
- Openly discuss universality of morphological phenomena with your students to help them question these ideas with their own language experiences
- Include background information about the languages you include and their users, which could include the number of users, the known history of the language, and what events or research practices may have caused the language to be understudied or viewed in a certain way (Glottolog; Ethnologue)
- Make sure students understand that the ways that standardized languages operate morphologically are not the baseline for “normal”
- If possible, showcase more than one language for each phenomenon to avoid students assuming there is only one language that does a certain thing
Resources
Sign Language and Linguistic Universals: Unit II: Morphology. Sandler, W., & Lillo-Martin, D. (2006). Cambridge University Press.
Sign Languages: Structures and Contexts: Chapter 3: Morphology. Hill, J. C., Lillo-Martin, D. C., & Wood, S. K. (2018). Routledge.
Sign Language: An International Handbook. Pfau, R., Steinbach, M., Woll, B., & Woll, B. (Bencie). (2012). De Gruyter Mouton.
ValPaL (The Valency Patterns Leipzig Online Database) – Useful source for finding simple somewhat parallel sentences for illustrating basic morphosyntactic differences (focus on valency but can be used to illustrate a variety of things)