Encodedness and Sign Language

ENCODEDNESS AND SIGN LANGUAGE CliffordE Abbott Everyone knows what a language is. Most people have one in working order before they even start school. And since everyone knows what a language is, it should be possible to determine the principles that underlie that knowledge. But to come up with a clear-cut, precise definition of language is something of a problem. Clearly we would want that definition to distinguish language in particular from communication in general. There are many systems of communication or ways of conveying meaning, which we metaphorically call languages, e.g. body language, the language of flowers, the language of art. But they are not really true languages like English, French, or Chinese. Many previously proposed definitions of language are lists of criteria for judging whether or not a given communication system is a true language. Duality of patterning, the possibility of metalanguage, a way to express temporal relations, and other features or traits are often included in such lists. These definitions are useful for distinguishing, e.g. body language as a communication system from Greek as a true language. There are, however, grey areas where we are less sure of that distinction. Suppose A and Bare in a room and B is sitting next to a closed window that he could open. If A says "It's hot in here," then under normal circumstances two things have been communicated: (1) A has made a comment on the relative temperature of the room, and (2) A has made a request for B to open the window. The first communication was surely done by the English language, but was the second communication part of that language or part of a separate communication system? This kind of communication is typical of a whole range of meanings that linguists and philosophers have labelled 'pragmatic' as opposed to 'semantic'. There is currently a debate among linguists as to whether pragmatic meaning should be incorporated into linguistic descriptions. In certain situations a raised eyebrow can communicate a lot of information. It is a good example of body language, really a non-language communication system. Again, if the situation is appropriate, a certain tone of voice can convey the same information as the raised eyebrowinformation , incidentally, that may not be easy to put into words. Is that tone of voice part of the grammar of the language, or is it, like the raised Sign Language Studies 7 eyebrow, part of a separate communication system? The situation is even more perplexing when we consider that in some languages the relative tone on which a word is pronounced is very much a part of the grammar. In Chinese, for example, a different tone may change a word meaning 'blue' (high rising tone) into a word meaning 'lazy' (low-dipping tone) (Chao 1968). Yet in other languages such changes in lexical meaning are impossible with tone changes. Even within a single language like English, the kind of phonological juncture used around relative clauses distinguishes restrictive from non-restrictive clauses, while the same junctures elsewhere have no such semantic effect. Tones of voice, junctures, and prosodic features generally, where they signify various nuances of attitude rather than concrete semantic differences, are often labelled paralinguistic. Like the pragmatic features, these paralinguistic features are part of that grey area between language and non-language communication (Lieberman 1973). Among many people, especially non-signers, there is confusion as to whether sign languages are true languages or are non-language communication systems. There is by no means as much agreement on the classification of sign languages as there is on the classification of English or body language. Part of the reason for this is the heavy use of pragmatic and paralinguistic mechanisms in most sign languages. Ultimately, the answer to the question "are sign languages real languages?" is less important and less productive than the way in which we attempt to answer the question. This paper proposes a different kind of measure. Instead of seeking a criterion for language, let us look for a measure of how language-like, or. linguistic, any part of a communication system is. Not all parts of English are equally linguistic; the same is true of...