Abstract
Abstract British Sign Language (BSL) has been shown to have a high degree of regional variation especially at the lexical level. This study explores awareness and attitudes of the British deaf community towards this regional variation. We studied interview data from the BSL Corpus (http://bslcorpusproject.org/data) from 121 deaf, BSL signers from six regions across the UK including Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, London and Manchester, focusing on responses to five questions in relation to regional variation in BSL. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis, following (Braun, V. & V. Clark. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2). 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa). Findings reveal that BSL signers exhibited overall high levels of meta-linguistic awareness, as many of their attitudes and beliefs were in line with what has been reported in relation to linguistic behaviour with BSL such as mouthing, fingerspelling and accommodation. In addition, BSL signers seem to place enormous value on regional variation in BSL, believing that such variation contributes to the richness of BSL as a language and puts it on equal footing with the surrounding majority language, i.e. English. We explore the implications of these attitudes towards a broader understanding of language ideologies, including the concept of accent.
Highlights
Many studies on language attitudes in spoken languages have focused on attitudes towards regional accents, with standard varieties being compared to non-standard varieties (Giles and Rakić 2014; Milroy 2001)
In this paper we report on language attitudes within the British deaf community about regional variation in British Sign Language (BSL), a minority language used in the UK
This study into the attitudes and beliefs of signers of regional variation in BSL shows that some of those beliefs are consistent with linguistic behaviour indicating that BSL signers have high levels of metalinguistic awareness of the language they use every day
Summary
Many studies on language attitudes in spoken languages have focused on attitudes towards regional accents, with standard varieties being compared to non-standard varieties (Giles and Rakić 2014; Milroy 2001). In this paper we report on language attitudes within the British deaf community about regional variation in British Sign Language (BSL), a minority language used in the UK. Very little is known about the attitudes and beliefs of BSL signers with regards to this regional variation in BSL. Studying this allows us to gain insight into the relationship between attitudes and behaviour which has never been studied on a large scale for sign languages before. In this paper we ask: Are signers aware of regional variation in BSL and if so, to what extent? What are their attitudes towards regional variation in BSL? In this paper we ask: Are signers aware of regional variation in BSL and if so, to what extent? What are their attitudes towards regional variation in BSL?
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have