Lexical variation and change in british sign language.
This paper presents results from a corpus-based study investigating lexical variation in BSL. An earlier study investigating variation in BSL numeral signs found that younger signers were using a decreasing variety of regionally distinct variants, suggesting that levelling may be taking place. Here, we report findings from a larger investigation looking at regional lexical variants for colours, countries, numbers and UK placenames elicited as part of the BSL Corpus Project. Age, school location and language background were significant predictors of lexical variation, with younger signers using a more levelled variety. This change appears to be happening faster in particular sub-groups of the deaf community (e.g., signers from hearing families). Also, we find that for the names of some UK cities, signers from outside the region use a different sign than those who live in the region.
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Rose
R
Stamp
Linguistics program and The Centre for Research on Language Diversity, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Adam
A
Schembri
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Jordan
J
Fenlon
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Ramas
R
Rentelis
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Bencie
B
Woll
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Kearsy
K
Cormier
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012660:Semantics; D012813:Sign Language; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult