© 1988 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Similarities and Differences between Spoken Languages and Natural Sign Languages
University of Pittsburgh
It is argued here that the study of natural sign languages can enhance our understanding of what language is. Sign languages are different in some ways from spoken languages because of the constraints and possiblities afforded by the visual-gestural modality, yet they remain fundamentally similar to spoken languages in many ways. Sign languages like spoken ones have syntactic, semantic, morphological, and phonological levels of analysis, and they are used to accomplish the same communicative functions. Although some signs have iconic (‘pictorial’) origins, form-meaning associations are culturally determined, as they are for spoken languages, and the form of signs tends to evolve in the direction of greater arbitrariness over time. Salient differences relate to sign languages' use of visual space, which makes possible, for example, spatial mapping of persons and places in narrative for clarity of reference. Other differences from spoken languages may be related to differences in speed of the articulators, coup
ed with the need to get information across at a rate suited for processing, as well as the need to reduce the effort of using large muscles for language transmission. Mechanisms such as spatial indexing, pronoun incorporation, and classifiers help the addressee keep referents straight, use visual space in a way that makes visual sense, and also save time and effort by presenting some information simultaneously which spoken languages would transmit linearly.