Abstract

Focusing on the social situation of German Sign Language (DGS) and their users, the article explores to what extent Ammon’s model of social forces that determine what is standard in language can also be applied to visual spatial languages. The paper demonstrates that Am-mon’s model is implicitly modality bound and as such cannot fully account for the situation of DGS-using community which largely consists of L2-signers. Although an alternative mod-el is not explicitly offered, the author shows that the model of social forces will need to be extended in order to be modality independent, i.e. applicable to both spoken and signed lan-guages and their communities.

Highlights

  • It has long been claimed that sign linguistic research will contribute to a more thorough and holistic understanding of language as human faculty (Siple 1978)

  • The following paper will both identify some of the problems in relation to the issue of implicit modality-boundedness in the sociolinguistic domain, and explore potential contributions to the field that can be derived from considering social forces at play within sign language communities

  • I will demonstrate that this model is explicitly language-related and implicitly modality-bound, which restricts its explanatory power when it comes to accounting for respective sociolinguistic dynamics in the German sign language community

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Summary

Introduction

It has long been claimed that sign linguistic research will contribute to a more thorough and holistic understanding of language as human faculty (Siple 1978). Even after more than half a century of academic analysis of visual spatial languages, the impact of sign linguistic research in terms of knowledge generation within the academic domain of sociolinguistics remains to be determined. Linguistik online 81, 2/17 sociolinguistic forces and processes that operate within sign language communities, which communicate predominantly via the visual-spatial modality, facilitates a more holistic understanding of language as human faculty. The following paper will both identify some of the problems in relation to the issue of implicit modality-boundedness in the sociolinguistic domain, and explore potential contributions to the field that can be derived from considering social forces at play within sign language communities. I will demonstrate that this model is explicitly language-related and implicitly modality-bound, which restricts its explanatory power when it comes to accounting for respective sociolinguistic dynamics in the German sign language community

Three preliminary remarks
On the linguistic situation of DGS
On the social situation of DGS
Model DGS-texts and model signers
Language norm authorities
Linguistic codex
Language experts
Findings
Discussion and concluding remarks
Full Text
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