Main Takeaways
Sign languages can and should be included for any linguistics course and topic
Educating students about sign languages and signing communities is a responsibility of all linguists
Studying sign languages not only helps us better understand language in general, it is also important in and of itself
Quick Wins
Changes you can easily implement to make a difference in your teaching and in the learning and experiences of your students
- Define linguistic terms using modality-general language: Terms like phoneme can be defined with phrases like building blocks or bundles of features instead of speech sounds.
- Use modality-general language when discussing topics that are modality-independent: Using terms like language user instead of speaker make clear to students that the phenomena you are discussing applies to all modalities and not only spoken languages.
- Correct yourself explicitly: If you notice yourself not using modality-general language when appropriate, stop and acknowledge that you should have been; not correcting yourself perpetuates the problems and explaining the correction helps everyone learn to do better.
- Take the time to learn about sign languages: Maintaining familiarity with the work of sign language linguists, especially deaf linguists, should be the norm for all linguists.
- Always present sign language data in a visual format (videos/images/gifs) without relying solely on glossing: Only glossing signs in a written language does not show the sign language itself (see #GlossGesang on Twitter for more on this topic); also make sure the person signing in the video, image, or gif is deaf.
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: Include sign language examples as often as possible
Sign languages are studied in every aspect of linguistics and examples from specific sign languages can be used in addition to spoken language examples
Why?
- Because sign languages are languages, they have just as much validity to exemplify a phenomenon as a spoken language
- Using examples from sign and spoken languages helps to contextualize whether a phenomenon is language-specific, modality-specific, or language-general
- Leaving students to learn about sign languages only in one-off class sessions or only in non-required courses does not prepare students as linguists
How?
- Use the resource database on the website to search for books, chapters, articles, and other resources tagged with “sign languages” and the subfield you want materials for to help get you started
- Stay up-to-date with sign language research happening in your subfield(s) by attending talks, reading papers, and/or following sign language linguists social media accounts or other online sources like websites
- Reference the work of deaf scholars and use videos of deaf signers
- Collaborate with colleagues to pool resources and create shared course materials
Suggestion #2: Represent various sign languages and varieties
While American Sign Language (ASL) may have every example you want for a class, there are around 300 known sign languages around the world and there are sign language varieties like Black ASL (BASL).
Why?
- Just as with the need to include non-Indo-European languages and minoritized dialects in spoken languages, the same is true of sign languages
- Including multiple sign languages and dialects helps to dispel the myths that there is one sign language or that sign language is universal
- Work on sign languages not within the same family as ASL has shown important insight into what is specific to a language and what can be generalized to a modality
How?
- Refer to sites like Spread the Sign, the Max Planck’s collection of sign language corpora, or other corpora listed in the resource database with the tag “sign languages”
- Incorporate examples and work on Black ASL and regional differences in ASL or other sign languages
- Use databases from various sign languages for assignments and analyses
- Incorporate work on tactile sign languages like Pro-Tactile ASL
Suggestion #3: Highlight the unique circumstances surrounding signing communities
From language emergence to multilingualism to language deprivation, a sociolinguistic understanding of sign languages and their signers is necessary for all linguists
Why?
- While spoken languages are quite old and their origins cannot truly be known, sign languages emerge under unique circumstances and sign languages in early stages of emergence are still being discovered
- Not only do signers know multiple languages, but many deaf signers are multilingual in sign, spoken, and written languages, leading to unique language contact and language use
- Most people believe language to be a guarantee for all humans, but many deaf children are born into hearing families and are not exposed to a fully accessible language like a sign language until after early childhood, resulting in late first language acquisition that can affect every aspect of their lives
How?
- Become knowledgeable about deaf communities and cultures so you can discuss with your students not only linguistic concepts about sign languages, but also things like deaf gain and deaf pride, as well as ableist barriers and deaf resilience
- Familiarize yourself with the historical roots of the sign languages you include in your courses and make students aware of how deaf people come together and form their own languages
- Incorporate the idea of multimodality not only in discussions about deaf readers or hearing signers, but also through the idea that we all use multimodal communication all the time
- Educate yourself and your students on language deprivation with work guided by the experiences and knowledge of deaf people and deaf organizations
Resources
Course Content
Sign Languages: Structures and Contexts. Hill, J. C., Lillo-Martin, D. C., & Wood, S. K. (2018). Routledge.
Sign Language and Linguistic Universals. Sandler, W., & Lillo-Martin, D. (2006). Cambridge University Press.
Sign Language: An International Handbook. Pfau, R., Steinbach, M., Woll, B., & Woll, B. (Bencie). (2012). De Gruyter Mouton.
The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure. McCaskill, C., Lucas, C., Bayley, R., & Hill, J. C. (2011). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Data Sources
Spread the Sign a site created by deaf signers with individual signs and sentences in sign languages from around the world and across numerous topics
Max Planck’s collection of sign language corpora