Notes

I have included a few links under "Resources" for some of the different sign languages. If you come across any useful ones for your own country's sign language, just drop me a line and I'll add them in.

Lesson 1

Fingerspelling invented by monks

Orthography of signs eg. CRY vs 'cry'

Terms: 'interlocutor' and signer (vs. listener and speaker)

Reasons for research into SL -- p. 327

Lesson 2

In addition, there are several phonological processes used in sign language. Phonological processes are used to alter the phonological form of a sound or sign in certain situations or environments These include:

Movement Epenthesis: adding a movement segment between the last segment of one sign and the first segment of the next sign. This can be likened to South African English, where what is called an intrusive 'r' is used between two words, where one ends with a vowel and another begins with a vowel. The intrusive 'r' is a term used for the articulation of an 'r' where there would not normally be an 'r'.

Hold deletion: Elimination of holds between movements when signs occur in sequence eg. GOOD IDEA. An example from spoken languages, can be seen in connected speech, which refers to a continuous string of sounds or words rather than words being spoken in isolation, where a consonant is sometimes deleted from a word. For example, one might say 'probly' instead of 'probably', in which case, the first 'b' would have been deleted.

Metathesis: parts of the segments of the sign can change place. An example of this from spoken language can be seen from the switching of the 's' and the 'k' in 'asks', thereby becoming 'aks'.

Assimilation: A segment takes on the characteristics of another segment near it, usually just before or after it. This can be seen in connected speech when the final consonant of one word is articulated in the same place of articulation as the first consonant of the following word. For example, in the phrase 'in Paris', the 'n' might sound like an 'm'. This is because 'n' is an alveolar sound, whereas 'p' is a bilabial sound. When 'n' undergoes assimilation in this case, it becomes a bilabial sound, or in other words, an 'm'.