To the Lexicon and Beyond: Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities

To the Lexicon and Beyond: The Effect of Gender on Variation in Irish Sign Language

To the Lexicon and Beyond: The Effect of Gender on Variation in Irish Sign Language Lorraine Leeson and Carmel Grehan Irish Sign Language (ISL) is the third most common language in Ireland , with approximately five thousand Deaf people using it as their first or preferred language (Burns 1997). The sociolinguistic context that ISL operates within is complex: Although Irish Sign Language is quite distinct from our nearest neighboring sign language, British Sign Language (BSL), BSL has had a significant influence on ISL. This stems from the access to televised BSL programs, the traditional migration of Irish Deaf people to the United Kingdom for postsecondary training and employment , and the cooperation of organizations of Deaf people in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Gender variation also exists as a result of the strict segregation of deaf boys and girls in the schools for Deaf children. As a small country, Ireland has not had a large number of dedicated deaf schools: Indeed, there is only one major school for Deaf boys (St. Joseph’s) and one for girls (St. Mary’s). The gender variation that exists at the lexical level for a particular generation of now elderly signers has been described in a number of articles (Le Master and Dwyer 1991; Le Master 1999–2000, 2002; O’Neill 2002). Even though regional variation is not a prominent sociolinguistic characteristic of ISL, there may well be a distinct Northern Irish variety of Irish Sign Language that is more influenced by British Sign Language than is ISL (Shane ÓhEorpa 2003, e-mail). Basic research is needed to substantiate this claim. In addition, as more and more deaf children are educated in partially deaf units (PHUs), that is, special units for deaf and hard of hearing children attached to local schools, an increased degree of variation may occur, with local varieties perhaps emerging from local schools and local Deaf self-advocacy organizations (e.g., the Kerry Deaf Resource Centre). However, it is fair to say that, to date, regional variation has not been identified as a major characteristic of contemporary ISL; thus no attempts to describe such variation have yet been made. 39 Because the focus of this chapter is gender, we begin by briefly reviewing the work that has been carried out on gender and generation in ISL, most notably that of Le Master and Dwyer (1991) and Le Master (1990, 1999–2000, 2002). We describe the evolution of gender-based lexical variation in ISL and then consider some questions. For example, does gender variation permeate ISL beyond the lexical level? If so, why? If gender variation has a corollary in generation, why do younger signers suggest that gender also plays a role in the way Deaf men and women sign today? If gender variation plays a role in contemporary ISL across the generations, how is this expressed (i.e., only at the lexical level, in idiomatic expressions, or in the form or frequency of specific grammatical or pragmatic structures)? We then consider some recent work on ISL (Saeed, Sutton-Spence, and Leeson 2000; Leeson 2001; Leeson and Saeed 2002) that suggests that gender has a broader range of influence than previously believed, though sometimes this seems to conflate with other factors such as whether a signer is from a Deaf family or has a Deaf sibling who is also an ISL user. GENERATION AND GENDER IN THE IRISH DEAF COMMUNITY The Dublin Deaf community has a history of distinct, sex-differentiated vocabularies that spans more than a century (Le Master and Dwyer 1991). The two major schools for Deaf children in Ireland are based in Dublin, less than a mile from each other. Like many other religious-run schools in Ireland, the schools for Deaf pupils are segregated by gender. When the Catholic schools were established in the 1840s, two Dominican nuns traveled with two Deaf girls, Agnes Beedan and Mary Ann Dougherty , aged eight and nine years respectively, to France to study methods of teaching Deaf children via sign language (Coogan 2002; Crean 1997; Matthews 1996b; McDonnell 1979). The Dominican sisters adapted the methodical French signing system to one suited to teaching English to Deaf girls attending St. Mary’s School for Hearing Impaired Girls. Ten years later St. Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys was established, and the Christian brothers adopted the signing system the Dominicans used, although they altered the form of many signs. Crean suggests that the Christian...