Linguistic Features of Language Contact
Sign language researchers Ceil Lucas and Clayton Valli have noted several differences between the language contact arising between two sign languages, and the contact phenomena that arise between a signed and an oral language. When two sign languages meet, the expected contact phenomena occurs —lexical borrowing, foreign "accent," interference, code switching, pidgins, creoles, and mixed systems. However, between a sign language and an oral language, while lexical borrowing and code switching also occur, the interface between the oral and signed modes produces unique phenomena: fingerspelling (see below), fingerspelling/sign combination, initialisation, CODA talk (see below), TTY conversation, mouthing, and contact signing.
Long-term contact with oral languages has generated a large influence on the vocabulary and grammar of sign languages. Loan translations are common, such as the American Sign Language signs BOY and FRIEND, forming a compound meaning "boyfriend", or the Auslan partial-calque DON'T MIND, which involves the sign for the noun MIND combined with an upturned palm, which is a typical Auslan negation. At what point a loan-translation becomes fully acceptable and considered as 'native' (rather than Contact Signing) is a matter over which native signers will differ in opinion. This process appears to be very common in those sign languages that have been best documented, such as American Sign Language, British Sign Language, and Auslan. In these cases, signers are increasingly bilingual in both a sign and a "spoken" language (or visual forms of it) as the deaf signing community's literacy levels increase. In such bilingual communities, loan translations are common enough that deeper grammatical structures may also be borrowed — in this case, from the oral language. This is known as metatypy. Malcolm Ross writes:
Usually, the language undergoing metatypy (the modified language) is emblematic of its speakers’ identity, whilst the language which provides the metatypic model is an inter-community language. Speakers of the modified language form a sufficiently tightknit community to be well aware of their separate identity and of their language as a marker of that identity, but some bilingual speakers, at least, use the inter-community language so extensively that they are more at home in it than in the emblematic language of the community.
Some populations with a high proportion of deaf people have developed sign languages that are used by both hearing and deaf people in the community, such as Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, Yucatec Maya Sign Language, Adamorobe Sign Language and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. It is unclear what kind of language contact phenomena, if any, occur in such environments.
Read more about this topic: Contact Sign
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