Mouthing constructions in 37 signed languages: typology, ecology and ideology

Abstract

Sign languages, like creoles, have been minoritised in linguistics. This makes perspectives on creoles the potential to illuminate the study of sign languages. A common way that sign languages are divided is into deaf and rural groups, based on social criteria. This distinction makes relationships between social and linguistic properties relevant. This paper investigates one such causal relationship, specifically whether extent of contact with spoken language(s) via institutionalised education translates into higher prevalence of the silent articulation of spoken words, mouthing. Across 37 sign languages (26 deaf; 11 rural) mouthing is prevalent regardless of language type, having been reported in 35 languages (25 deaf; 10 rural). This suggests that differences in language emergence do not produce a structural difference in terms of mouthing. Language documentation should include description of contact phenomena and ideologies, and comparison can avoid stereotyping of language groups based on tokenised cases (de facto prototypes).

Naming in Two Modalities: Manual and Mouth Gestures in Hearing and Deaf Children

“…We maintain together with other scholars (Fontana e Fabbretti, 2000;Boyes Braem, 2001;Sutton-Spence, 2001;Crasborn et al, 2008;Roccaforte, 2017;Kusters, 2017;Lin, 2019;Bogliotti and Isel, 2021;Bisnath, 2022) that mouth actions cannot play an external role in lexical access as they function always in correlation with the manual sign and they convey information shaped in relation to the manual sign and to the user"s need. The principal results of this study seem to support the hypothesis that manual gestures and mouth actions act dialectically with the spoken or signed mode of expression and both carry meaning in two different ways.…”

“…Research based on different kinds of data and on different sign languages (Boyes-Braem, Sutton-Spence, 2001;Bisnath, 2022), has shown that mouthings occur more frequently than mouth gestures and both of them co-occur with the manual sign. Nevertheless, whereas mouth gestures are typically considered a part of sign language, mouthings are viewed as a sociolinguistic phenomenon due to the oral education of most deaf children (Hohenberger and Happ, 2001) and to the situation of bilingualism of most deaf adults (Boyes Braem, 2001;Bogliotti and Isel, 2021) to the interplay of the modalities of signed, spoken and written languages (Bauer, Kyuseva, 2022).…”

“…Nevertheless, whereas mouth gestures are typically considered a part of sign language, mouthings are viewed as a sociolinguistic phenomenon due to the oral education of most deaf children (Hohenberger and Happ, 2001) and to the situation of bilingualism of most deaf adults (Boyes Braem, 2001;Bogliotti and Isel, 2021) to the interplay of the modalities of signed, spoken and written languages (Bauer, Kyuseva, 2022). Although mouthings has been considered as remnants of an oralist education (Hohenberger and Happ, 2001), not only are they very persistent in signing, but they also seem to be considered part of the language by native signers (Fontana, 2015;Bisnath, 2022) that consider "unnatural" signing without mouthings. In a study comparing two different age groups who had a different education and access to sign language, Van De Sande and Crasborn (2009) have pointed out that there is no difference between late and early signers of NGT (Sign language of the Netherlands).…”

Language Contact

“…The following sections briefly survey these types, illustrating the variety of categorisations, definitional criteria, contact situations, and structural outcomes entailed in language contact groups. These groups are idealisations, and the various properties we describe can and have been used to essentialise group members, groups, and language contact itself (Faraclas, 2020;Bisnath, 2023, on de facto prototypes).…”

“…Using the term semiotic resources, as opposed to grammatical features or even linguistic material encourages us to expand the scope of what meaningful material is drawn upon by language users in heterogeneous linguistic contexts, increasing both the descriptive and explanatory power of language contact models. As an example, we draw upon the case study of mouthing in sign 1 languages (Bisnath, 2023) to demonstrate what is gained from such an expansion of scope. We also emphasise the centrality of language users' subjectivities in determining how these semiotic resources are associated with a particular language or variety; this encourages linguists to expect measurable variation within and across language users in terms of where language boundaries are.…”