Some Characteristics of Pidgin Sign English

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF PIDGIN SIGN ENGLISH James C. Woodward, Jr. 0.0 General Remarks. This paper should in no way be regarded as anything near a comprehensive treatment of the language varieties included under the term Pidgin Sign English (PSE). This paper merely attempts to introduce some of the observed characteristics of PSE varieties and to present a very general case for the classification of these language varieties as a pidgin. Some of the much needed systematic research on PSE is outlined in the last section of this paper. 1.0 Introduction. Although pidgin and creole languages have existed for a long time, they have only relatively recently become an important object of interest for linguists (Hall 1968 and DeCamp 1968a). In fact, research on pidgins and creoles is crucially needed for a better understanding of language in a dynamic framework, as proposed by Bailey (1970) and others. One pidgin that has virtually been ignored by linguists is a visual-manual pidgin - PSE. Visual-manual languages offer linguists important insights into the nature of language (Bellugi and Fischer 1972), since changes in channel often result in radical changes in codes of code structure (Hymes 1964). PSE is especially interesting in this regard since PSE is actually influenced by a visual-manual language, American Sign Language, and an auditory-oral language, English. 2 0 Pidginand Creole Languages. 2.1 Pidgins. There is no really good definition of pidgin and creole languages. However, it is generally agreed that pidgin languages are reduced in structure, contain a partial mixture of structure of two to several languages, and contain structure common to none of the languages in the communication situation. Pidgins are not native languages of any of the Sign Language Studies users. Pidgins are used primarily in restricted social situations for communicative purposes and are not generally used for socially integrative and personally expressive functions (Smith 1972). Generally along with this restricted function of language go negative attitudes towards the pidgin. 2.2 Creoles. An oversimplistic but often used definition is that a creole language is a pidgin that has become the native language of a group of people. But, as Hymes (1968) points out, a language may be creolized without going through a pidgin stage. A language in a creole stage adds redundancies lacked by pidgins and is more often used for integrative and expressive functions of interaction in a community. If the creole users are monolingual, naturally, the creole will be used for these functions. 3.0 PidginSign English. 3.1 Introduction. Stokoe (1970), Meadow (1972), Moores (1972) have discussed the language situation in the deaf community as a diglossic situation. Woodward (1972 1973) added the notion of continuum to the language situation in the deaf community, making it possible to speak of a deaf diglossic continuum between American Sign Language (ASL) and Standard English. It has been pointed out many times in the past that ASL is not English but another language (Stokoe 1965, 1970; Bellugi 1972, Meadow 1972, and others) and it has now been demonstrated that certain ASL grammatical variation is conditioned by hierarchies of ASL cherological (phonological) features and not by English phonological features (Woodward 1973a). Going back to the notion of a language continuum that has a different language at each pole, it seems reasonable to conclude that the intermediate varieties on the continuum will show reduction and mixture of grammatical structures of both languages as well as some new structures that are common to neither of the languages. All of these characteristics do appear in PSE and are typical characteristics of pidgins. Thus Woodward (1972, 1973), Stokoe (1972) and Friedman (1973) have suggested that some of these intermediate varieties along the deaf diglossic continuum should be included under the title of Pidgin Sign English. 3.2 Some Linguistic Characteristicsof PSE. This section is a taxonomic Woodward approach to some of the surface grammatical characteristics of PSE. (Much more information is necessary before PSE deep structure, lexical realization , and "phonology" can be discussed.). This is not the most fruitful approach, naturally. However, not enough is known yet to handle even surface grammatical variation of PSE in a dynamic framework. Section 4.0 will discuss the possibility...