Emergence and evolutions: Introducing sign language sociolinguistics

Abstract

The sociolinguistics of sign languages parallels as well as complements the sociolinguistics of spoken languages. All of the key areas of sociolinguistics, such as multilingualism, language contact, variation, and language attitudes-are of immediate relevance to sign languages. At the same time, sign language researchers using a range of data sources and methods (e.g., sign language corpora, linguistic elicitation, and linguistic ethnography) have showed that the unique natures and features of sign languages allow us to look at all these areas from a different vantage point. First, deficit perspectives on deafness serve to sharply distinguish the reality of sign languages from that of spoken languages. The linguistic status of sign languages has been long contested, and certain forms of signing are still labeled "nonlanguage." The delineation and differentiation of sign languages, and of sign languages from other signing practices (e.g., gesturing, home sign) has therefore been a key issue. Second, sign languages are used by both deaf and hearing people, in contexts where spoken/written languages, and increasingly also other sign languages are in use, leading to complex multimodal forms of signspoken, sign-written, and sign-sign language contact, and to hierarchical constellations of language attitudes and This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

“…Black ASL was pushed to the periphery of the scholarly focus and remained that way for several decades (McCaskill et al, 2011). Scholars also distinguished "linguistic" and "non-linguistic" communication by categorizing signing practices into language types such as home signs or a conventional sign language (Brentari & Goldin-Meadow, 2017;Moriarty Harrelson, 2019;Hou & de Vos, 2021;Kusters & Lucas, 2022;Goico & Horton, 2023).…”

Deconstructing notions of morphological “complexity”: Lessons from creoles and sign languages

“…The foundations for much of the discussion are strategic essentialisms rooted in legitimising (the study of) sign languages (Kusters & Lucas 2022). Showing that sign language morphology includes both derivational and inflectional processes validates them as languages on par with spoken languages (upon which the study of morphology was founded).…”

Breakdowns and assemblages: Including machine‐actants in sociolinguistic ethnographies of blue‐collar work environments

“…In this final section, I discuss a few lingering thoughts. First of all, the article shows that it may be fruitful to not only think about linguistic capital as certain language varieties being more 'valuable' than others, but also in terms of which communication practices are considered language in the first place (see also Cornips & Van den Hengel, 2021;Kusters & Lucas, 2022). Defining what counts as language, and what not, is not politically innocent, but related to a long history of ideas where language is associated with rationality, intelligence, and distinctions from non-human nature (Cornips & Van den Hengel, 2021, pp.…”

“…Finally, they provoke the question why only particular workplace interactions are called 'language' (see also Pennycook, 2021, pp. 231-232), and whether this may serve to legitimise social inequalities between different groups of workers (see also Cornips & Van den Hengel, 2021;Kusters & Lucas, 2022).…”