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Sociolinguistic aspects of variation and change

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33. Variation and change
1. Introduction
2. Linguistic variables in sign languages
3. Phonological variation and change
4. Lexical variation and change
5. Grammatical variation
6. Register and stylistic variation
7. Conclusion
8. Literature

Abstract
In this chapter, we provide an overview of the study of sociolinguistic variation and
change in sign languages, with a focus on deaf sign languages in English-speaking
countries (particularly ASL, Auslan, BSL, and NZSL). We discuss linguistic, social and
stylistic factors in sociolinguistic variation, and the nature of variables in signed and
spoken languages. We then move on to describe work on phonological variation,
describing specific studies investigating variation in the formational parameters of
location, handshape as well as one- versus two-handed productions of signs. Next, we
outline some of the major research into lexical variation, and its relationship to social
factors such as the signer’s age, region of origin, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity,
and religion. This is followed by a discussion of grammatical variation, such as studies
focussing on linguistic and social factors that condition variable subject argument
expression. We then describe some of the work on stylistic variation in sign languages,
before concluding that much work remains to be carried out to better understand
sociolinguistic variation in deaf communities.

1. Introduction

In this chapter, we describe sociolinguistic variation and change in sign languages. It

has been a long-standing observation that there is considerable attested variation in the
use of most sign languages (e.g., Stokoe/Casterline/Croneberg (1965) for American
Sign Language (ASL)). Indeed, as additional sign languages are identified and
described, this observation continues to hold true (e.g., Meir et al. (2007) for Al-Sayyid
Bedouin Sign Language, a village community sign language of Israel). The factors that
drive sociolinguistic variation and change in both spoken and sign language
communities can be broadly categorized into three types – linguistic or internal
constraints, social or inter-speaker constraints, and stylistic or intra-speaker constraints
(e.g., Meyerhoff 2006). They form a complex interrelationship, with each influencing
language use in distinctive ways. Social factors include, for example, a signer’s age,
region of origin, gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (Lucas/Valli/Bayley
2001). Linguistic factors include phonological processes such as assimilation and
reduction (e.g., Schembri et al. 2009), and grammaticalization (see chapter 34,
Lexicalization and Grammaticalization). Stylistic variation involves alternation
between, for example, casual and formal styles of speech used by an individual speaker,
often reflecting differing degrees of attention to speech due to changes in topic, setting,
and audience (Schilling-Estes 2002). Much of the research on sociolinguistic variation,
2

which we describe and illustrate in this chapter, is concerned with variation that reflects
the type of linguistic and social factors listed above.
It should be noted, however, that some factors involved in sociolinguistic variation
in sign languages are distinctive. Urban Deaf signing communities (in contrast to mixed
Deaf-hearing village sign language communities, e.g., Nyst (2007); see chapter 24,
Shared Sign Languages) are exceptional among linguistic communities in that they are
invariably extremely small minority communities embedded within larger majority
communities whose languages are in an entirely different modality and which may have
written forms and extensive written literatures, unlike sign languages. The influence of
the spoken and written language of the majority hearing community on the local deaf
community sign language is thus a major driving factor in much observed variation (see
chapter 35, Language Contact and Borrowing), and some of the linguistic outcomes of
this contact situation (such as fingerspelling and mouthing) are unique to bimodal
bilingual communities (Lucas/Valli 1992). This picture is further complicated by
patterns of language acquisition and generational transmission which are atypical for
most Deaf signers (see chapter 28 on acquisition). These complex usage and acquisition
environments are thus additional important factors when discussing variation in sign
languages.
In the following sections, we examine and exemplify sociolinguistic variation in
sign languages at the levels of phonology, lexicon, grammar, and discourse. These
variant forms are often described in terms of accents, regional and social dialects, and
registers or styles (e.g., Meyerhoff 2006). Our discussion, however, also includes some
observations on language change, as sociolinguistic variation is inseparable from
language change (Labov 1972). From one perspective, this is captured in the ‘apparent
time hypothesis’ which suggests that variation in the linguistic system used by speakers
of different ages at a single point in time can indicate a change in progress (Bailey
2002). From another perspective, the use of variant forms of individual signs
(phonological or lexical) or certain multi-sign constructions (grammar, register) in
particular contexts might also be called ‘synchronic contextual variation’ (Heine 2002).
This is based on the observation that variation is often indicative of differential patterns
of grammaticalization of forms across a speech community (Pagliuca 1994; Chambers
1995).
In other words, there is always variation in language, and variation may function as
an index of social variables such as gender, class, etc. In addition, some variation may
actually reflect on-going language change, including grammaticalization. Only by
taking all these observations into account can sociolinguistic variation and change in
sign languages be properly understood.

2. Linguistic variables in sign languages

Variation in spoken and sign languages may be found at all levels of structural
organization. At the phonological level, speakers of different British English varieties
vary in their use of rhotic sounds, such as the use of /r/ after a vowel in words such as
father and tractor in south-western England but not in the south-east (Wardaugh 1992).
In sign languages, variation may occur in all sublexical features of signs, including
handshape (e.g., a B- or ]-hand configuration in the sign INDEX1 in ASL) and location
(e.g., the sign KNOW produced on the forehead or cheek in Australian Sign Language
(Auslan)), as we shall see below. Lexical variation in English includes words such as
fall versus autumn used in North American and British/Australian/New Zealand
 3

varieties, respectively (Schneider 2006). Similarly, regional varieties of British Sign

Language and Auslan vary in their use of signs for colours, such as BLUE, GREEN, and
WHITE (Johnston/Schembri 2007). Grammatical variation in English includes the use of
double negation in many vernacular varieties of the language, as in she didn’t say
nothing compared to she didn’t say anything (Meyerhoff 2006). In the discussion
below, we will see that ASL and Auslan both exhibit variable subject expression, with
signers sometimes using clauses such as INDEX1 UNDERSTAND and sometimes simply
UNDERSTAND to mean ‘I understand’. Discourse-level variation includes register or
stylistic variation, and may involve the use of different genres or situational uses of
language. For example, conversations in English differ in structure from narratives:
turn-taking occurs in conversations, with a range of cues used to determine whose turn
it is to speak, and the structure of talk varies widely, but usually follows a number of
principles, such as the maxim of relevance. In narratives, however, usually the
storyteller speaks with minimal interruptions, using a structured sequence of sentences
that describe events in the order in which they occur. Similar differences have been
found in sign language conversations and narratives (Coates/Sutton-Spence 2001;
Johnston/Schembri 2007; also see chapter 22, Communicative Interaction).
The sociolinguistic study of spoken languages has long rested on two guiding
principles: the “principle of quantitative modelling” and the “principle of multiple
causes” (Young/Bayley 1996). The first principle refers to the need to carefully quantify
both variation in linguistic form and the relationship between a variant form and
features of its surrounding linguistic environment and social context. The second
principle reflects the long-standing assumption that no single linguistic or social factor
can fully explain variation in language use. Lucas and Bayley (2010) provide the
following example: variable use of -ing in English (that is, whether a speaker in a
particular situation says workin’ or working) is influenced by the grammatical category
of the word to which the ending is attached (for example, whether it is a verb or a noun)
and by the speaker’s gender and social class (Houston 1991; Trudgill 1974).

3. Phonological variation and change

To date, three major sociolinguistic investigations have systematically addressed

phonological variation in particular sign languages: ASL, Auslan, and New Zealand
Sign Language (NZSL). All three studies examined location variation, while the ASL
study also examined handshape variation as well as variable metathesis and location
deletion in the sign DEAF. With respect to the language external factors of region, age,
gender, and ethnicity, these studies also show how these factors influence apparently
random variation in rather systematic ways.

3.1. Early studies on ASL

Early studies conducted into phonological variation in ASL include Woodward, Erting,
and Oliver’s (1976) investigation into the variable use of signs, such as RABBIT and
COLOUR, which have related forms produced on the face or on the hands. Drawing on
data from 45 participants, these researchers found evidence of variation due to ethnicity,
with Black signers being much more likely to use the hand variants. Their data also
suggested regional differences, with signers in New Orleans producing fewer variants
on the hands than those in Atlanta. Another study by Woodward and DeSantis (1977)
4

found similar ethnic variation in two-handed versus one-handed forms of ASL signs
such as CAT, COW (see Figure 33.1), and GLASSES, with White signers using
significantly more of the one-handed variants of these signs. They also found that
Southern signers used more two-handed variants than non-Southerners, and that older
signers used more than younger signers.

Fig. 33.1: Two-handed and one-handed variants of the ASL sign COW. Copyright © 1980 by Gallaudet
University Press. Reprinted with permission

One study that did not directly concern itself with phonological variation is also relevant
here. As Lucas et al. (2001) pointed out, Frishberg’s investigation into phonological
change in ASL demonstrated that there was a relationship between sociolinguistic
variation and language change. Frishberg (1975) compared lexical signs listed in the
1965 dictionary of ASL with the same signs in publications that documented older
varieties of ASL and French Sign Language (LSF, to which ASL is related historically;
see chapter 38 on the history of sign languages). In particular, she found that many
newer forms of signs involved changes from two-handed variants to one-handed forms
(e.g., MOUSE, DEVIL), from less to more symmetrical variants (e.g., DEPEND, LAST),
and/or moved from more peripheral locations in the signing space to more centralised
places of articulation (e.g., LIKE, FEEL). Similar findings for British Sign Language
(BSL) were reported in Woll (1987), such as the movement of signs from higher to
lower locations (e.g., PERHAPS from the head to in front of the body, as shown in Figure
33.2, TROUBLE and POLICE from the arm to the back of the wrist or hand), as well as a
tendency for two-handed signs to become one-handed. Both Frishberg (1975) and Woll
(1987) remarked that diachronic changes in ASL and BSL were related to synchronic
phonological variation.

Fig. 33.2: Historical change in the BSL, Auslan and NZSL sign PERHAPS. Copyright © 1985 by
Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.
 5

Many research projects into sociolinguistic variation in ASL have tended to draw on
data from small numbers of participants, and varied a great deal in methodology
(Patrick/Metzger 1996). For example, Hoopes (1998) undertook a study into variable
pinky extension in ASL signs such as THINK and WONDER, finding evidence that pinky
extension occurred more often in signs that were emphatically stressed and in more
intimate social registers. This study, however, was based on only 100 tokens collected
from data produced by a single 55 year old White female non-native signer.

3.2. The case of DEAF in ASL

In the 1990s, the first large-scale studies of phonological variation in ASL were
undertaken by Ceil Lucas and her colleagues (Lucas/Bayley/Valli 2001). These
investigations drew on a representative sample of the American deaf population and
employed multivariate analyses of the data (that is, an analysis which considers multiple
variables simultaneously) using Varbrul software, a statistical programme developed
specifically for sociolinguistic research. The dataset for this major study consisted of
videotaped conversations, interviews, and lexical sign elicitation sessions collected from
207 Deaf native and early learner signers of ASL in seven sites across the USA:
Staunton, Virginia; Frederick, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Olathe, Kansas; New
Orleans, Louisiana; Fremont, California; and Bellingham, Washington. The participants
included a mix of men and women, both White and African-American, from three
different age groups (15–25, 26–52, and 55 years of age and over). The sample also
included signers from both working class and middle class backgrounds.
The first study in the ASL project investigated variation in the sign DEAF, building
on an initial small-scale study reported in Lucas (1995). This sign has a number of
phonological variants, but three were the focus of the study (see Figure 33.3): the
citation form in which the B-handshape contacts the ear and then moves down to contact
the chin, and two non-citation forms which consist of either a reversed movement of the
hand from chin to ear or a reduced form in which the handshape simply contacts the
cheek. Results from the multivariate analysis of 1,618 examples showed that the factors
that conditioned such phonological variation were linguistic, social, and stylistic in
nature. First, Bayley, Lucas, and Rose (2000) reported that signers were less likely to
use a citation form in nominal compounds, such as DEAF^WORLD or DEAF^CULTURE, but
more likely to do so when DEAF was part of a predicate, as in INDEX3 DEAF ‘She is deaf’.
Second, social factors such as region and age were important. Signers in Kansas,
Missouri, and Virginia tended to use non-citation forms of DEAF more than twice as
often as signers in Boston. Despite this, older signers in Boston were found to be
consistently more likely to use the citation form than younger signers. Third, stylistic
factors may have also been at work, with less use of the citation forms in narratives than
in conversation, but the number of examples of DEAF collected from narratives was
small. Thus, this result is only suggestive and needs to be confirmed by a large sample.
6

Fig. 33.3: Phonological variation in the ASL sign DEAF: (a) ear to chin variant, (b) chin to ear variant, (c)
contact cheek variant in the compound DEAF^CULTURE. Copyright © 2001 by Cambridge University
Press. Reprinted with permission.

3.3. Handshape in ASL

Lucas and her colleagues next explored variation in ASL signs produced in citation
form with the B-handshape, such as the lexical signs GO-TO, MOUSE, and BLACK,
together with functors such as INDEX2, BUT, and WHERE. This class of signs exhibit
variation in hand configuration. Bayley, Lucas, and Rose (2002) found that this
variation may be relatively small, with some bending of the B-handshape so that it
resembles an D-handshape, or with thumb extension so that it looks like an C-hand
configuration. In some cases, however, the assimilation may be more marked, with the
thumb and other fingers also extended so that the B-handshapes resembles a ]. In some
early observations about this variation, Liddell and Johnson (1989) suggested that this
phenomenon might be primarily due to assimilation effects in which handshape features
of the neighbouring signs influenced the variant forms. The results presented in Bayley,
Lucas, and Rose (2002), however, showed that additional linguistic and social factors
were at work in handshape variation. Analysis of the 5,356 examples in the ASL dataset
using Varbrul revealed the relative strength of the influence of each factor when
compared to other factors, and phonological environment turned out to be significant,
but not the most important linguistic factor. Instead, like DEAF, grammatical function
was the strongest influence. Signers are more likely to choose the C-handshape variant
for wh-signs, for example, and the ] variant for pronouns (particularly INDEX1), whereas
other lexical and function signs are more often realised in citation form. Social factors
were also important, with signers in California, Kansas/Missouri, Louisiana, and
Massachusetts favouring the citation form, while those in Maryland, Virginia, and
 7

Washington state all disfavoured it. Lucas and her colleagues also found that age, social
class, and ethnicity were important constraints, but not for all variants of the B-
handshape: younger signers used the C and ] variants more often than older signers, for
example, but while signers who were not native users of ASL preferred the ]-handshape
form, this difference was not true of the C-handshape variants.

3.4. Location in ASL

Lucas and her team also investigated location variation in a class of ASL signs
represented by KNOW. In their citation form, these signs are produced on or near the
signer’s forehead, but often may be produced at locations lower than this, either on
other parts of the signer’s body (such as near the cheek) or in the space in front of the
signer’s chest. Again, Varbrul analysis of 2,594 ASL examples in their dataset showed
that grammatical function was the strongest linguistic factor, with noun, verbs, and
adjectives (e.g., FATHER, UNDERSTAND, DIZZY) appearing more often in citation forms
while prepositions (e.g., FOR) and interrogative signs (e.g., WHY) favoured lowered
variants. Phonological environment was also important, with preceding signs made on
or near the body having a significant influence on whether or not the target sign
appeared as a lowered variant. The results also indicated that younger signers, men, and
non-native signers all favoured lowered variants when compared to older signers,
women, and native signers. Regional and ethnic differences also emerged, with African-
American deaf people and those from Virginia and Washington state tending to use
more citation forms than Whites and signers from the five other regions.

3.5. One-handed versus two-handed forms in BSL and NZSL

There has also been some work on phonological variation in BSL and NZSL. Deuchar
(1981) noted that phonological deletion of the non-dominant hand in two-handed signs
was possible in BSL (sometimes known as ‘weak drop’, e.g., Brentari 1998). Deuchar
claimed that the deletion of the non-dominant hand in symmetrical two-handed signs,
such as GIVE and HOSPITAL, was frequent, as also noted in ASL (Battison 1974). She
argued that weak drop in asymmetrical two-handed signs appeared most likely in signs
where the handshape on the non-dominant hand was a relatively unmarked
configuration, such as ] or 6. Thus, variants without the non-dominant hand seemed
more common in her data in signs such as RIGHT (with non-dominant ]) than in FATHER
(non-dominant T). Furthermore, she undertook a pilot study to investigate what
discourse factors might affect the frequency of weak drop. Deuchar predicted that
signers might use less deletion in more formal varieties of BSL. She compared 30
minutes of BSL data collected under two situations: one at a deaf club social event and
another in a church service. Based on a small dataset of 201 tokens, she found that only
6% of two-handed signs occurred with weak drop in the formal situation, whereas 50%
exhibited deletion of the non-dominant hand in the informal setting. She also suggested
that this weak drop variation may also reflect language change in progress, based on
Woll’s (1981) claim that certain signs (e.g., AGAIN) which appear to be now primarily
one-handed in modern BSL (and indeed in all BANZSL varieties) were formerly two-
handed.
Glimpses of similar patterns of diachronic change in phonological structure
emerged in a study of NZSL numeral signs (McKee/McKee/Major 2011), in which it
8

was noted that variants consistently favoured by the younger generation for numerals
SIX to TEN utilise only the dominant hand, whereas older signers are more likely to use a
two-handed ‘base 5’ (weak hand) plus ‘additional digits’ (dominant hand) system for
these numerals (e.g., signing FIVE on the non-dominant hand simultaneously with TWO
on the dominant hand for ‘seven’, similar to the number gestures sometimes used by
hearing people).

3.6 Location in Auslan and NZSL

The NZSL numerals data comes from a major NZSL sociolinguistic project which, like
the related Auslan variation project that preceded it, replicated the work of Lucas and
colleagues. The Auslan and NZSL sociolinguistic variation projects also investigated
phonological variation, focusing specifically on variation in the location parameter in a
class of signs that includes THINK, NAME, and CLEVER which, like the similar class of
signs in ASL studied by Lucas, Bayley, Rose, and Wulf (2002), could be produced at
locations lower than the forehead place of articulation seen in their citation forms (see
Figure 33.4).

THINK CLEVER NAME NAME

(citation form) (citation form) (citation form) (lowered variant)
Fig. 33.4: Three BANZSL forehead location signs and one lowered variant. Copyright © 2007 by
Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

Schembri et al. (2009) reported that variation in the use of the location parameter in
these signs reflects both linguistic and social factors, as has also been reported for ASL.
Like the American study, the Auslan results provided evidence that the lowering of this
class of signs reflects a language change in progress in the Australian deaf community,
led by younger people and individuals from the larger urban centres. This geolinguistic
pattern of language change (i.e., from larger to smaller population centres) is known as
cascade diffusion, and is quite common cross-linguistically (Labov 1990). The NZSL
study found evidence of similar regional differences in the use of lowered variants, but
age was not a significant factor in their dataset.
Furthermore, the results indicated that some of the particular factors at work, and
the kinds of influence that they have on location variation, appear to differ in Auslan
and NZSL when compared to ASL. First, the Auslan and NZSL studies suggested
relatively more influence on location variation from the immediate phonological
environment (i.e., from the preceding and following segment) than is reported for ASL.
This may reflect differences in methodology between the three studies – unlike the ASL
study, the Auslan and NZSL studies did not include signs made in citation form at the
temple or compound signs in which the second element was produced lower in the
signing space. Second, the Auslan data suggested that location variation in this class of
 9

signs is an example of language change led by deaf women, not by deaf men as in ASL
(Lucas/Bayley/Valli 2001). This is typical of a language change known as ‘change from
below’, that is, one that is occurring without there being much awareness of this change
in progress among the community of speakers or signers (see Labov 1990). Third, the
Australian and New Zealand researchers showed that grammatical function interacts
with lexical frequency in conditioning location variation (i.e., they found that high
frequency verbs were lowered more often than any other class of signs), a factor not
considered in the ASL study.

4. Lexical variation and change

Lexical variation presents the clearest examples of sociolinguistic variation in many

sign languages, with lexical choices often systematically associated with signers of a
particular age, gender, region, ethnicity, or educational background.

4.1. Region

From the very beginning of the systematic study of sign languages, the significant
amount of regional lexical variation in signing communities has been reported. For
example, in the appendix to the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language
(Stokoe/Casterline/Croneberg 1965), Croneberg discusses regional variation in ASL,
focussing on the eastern states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Virginia, and
North Carolina. A lexical variation study based on a list of 134 vocabulary items
suggested that the ASL varieties used in Virginia and North Carolina represented
distinct dialects, whereas no such dialect boundary could be found between the three
New England states where many of the same lexical items were shared.
Regional lexical variation has been noted in a wide range of sign languages, such as
LSF (Moody 1983), Italian Sign Language (Radutzky 1992), Brazilian Sign Language
(Campos 1994), South African Sign Language (Penn 1992), Filipino Sign Language
(Apurado/Agravante 2006), and Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (Jepson 1991;
Woodward 1993; Zeshan 2000). Even signed varieties that are used across relatively
small geographical areas, such as Flemish Sign Language in the Flemish-speaking areas
of Belgium (Van Hecke/De Weerdt 2004) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT,
Schermer 2004), can have multiple distinctive regional variants. NGT, for instance, has
five regional dialects, with significant lexical differences between all regions but
particularly between the south and the rest of the country. Indeed, the compilers of sign
language dictionaries have struggled to deal with lexical variation adequately, and have
often avoided the problem altogether by compiling standardizing lexicons (see chapter
37, Language Politics), or by minimising the amount of information included (e.g.,
Brien 1992 for BSL).
In our discussion below, we largely draw on data from sociolinguistic studies of
ASL, Auslan, NZSL, and BSL. The reason is that what is of more importance and
interest than actual examples is that the phenomenon stems from similar sociolinguistic
factors in different signing communities, and manifests itself in very similar ways.
Take, for example, the two main regional varieties of Auslan – the northern dialect
and the southern dialect. Most noticeably, these two dialects differ in the signs
traditionally used for numbers, colours, and some other concepts (Johnston 1998).
10

Indeed, the core set of vocabulary items in certain semantic areas (e.g., colour signs) is
actually different for every basic term in these dialects (see Figure 33.5).

RED BLUE GREEN YELLOW BLACK

Fig. 33.5: Colour signs in the northern (top) and southern (bottom) dialects of Auslan. Copyright © 2007
by Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

There are also a number of state-based specific lexical differences that cut across this
major dialect division. The sign AFTERNOON, for example, has five forms or variants
across six states (see Figure 33.6).

Queensland New South Victoria South Australia Tasmania

Wales and
Western Australia
Fig. 33.6: The sign AFTERNOON in various states of Australia. Copyright © 2007 by Cambridge
University Press. Reprinted with permission.

The geographical distribution of lexical variation in core areas of the lexicon, like that
illustrated above, lies at the basis for the proposal that Auslan can be divided into two
major regional varieties. It appears that these two regional varieties have developed, at
least in part, from lexical variation in different varieties of BSL in the 19th century,
although primary sources documenting sign language use at the time are lacking.
In NZSL, there is similar evidence of regional variation in the lexicon (see
Kennedy et al. 1997), associated with three main concentrations of Deaf population in
Northern (Auckland), Central (Wellington), and Southern (Christchurch) cities.
Regional lexical variation in BSL is well-known in the British Deaf community and
has been the subject of some research (Sutton-Spence/Woll/Allsop 1990). As with
Auslan, signs for colour and numbers vary greatly from region to region. For example,
Manchester signers traditionally appear to use a unique system of signs for numbers.
Some of this regional variation has been documented (e.g., Edinburgh and East Scotland
Society for the Deaf 1985; Skinner 2007; Elton/Squelch 2008), but compared to the
lexicographic projects undertaken in Australia (Johnston 1998) and New Zealand
 11

(Kennedy et al. 1997), augmented with data from the recent sociolinguistic variation
projects, lexical variation and its relation to region in BSL remains relatively poorly
described. Current work as part of the BSL Corpus Project based at University College
London, however, has begun to document and describe this lexical variation in more
detail (see http://www.bslcorpusproject.org).
For ASL, there has also been some work on regional variation. For example,
Shroyer and Shroyer (1984) elicited data from 38 White signers in 25 states for 130
concepts. This yielded a collection of 1,200 sign variants (including the signs meaning
‘birthday’ shown in Figure 33.7), although the authors did not carefully distinguish
between related phonological variants and distinct lexical variants (Lucas et al. 2001).
Their data did, however, seem to suggest that, like BANZSL varieties, ASL regional
variation was concentrated in certain semantic categories, particularly signs for food
and animals.

Fig. 33.7: Regional variation in the ASL signs for BIRTHDAY: standard variant (left), Pennsylvania variant
(center), and Indiana variant (right). Copyright © 2005 by Gallaudet University Press. Reprinted with
permission.

As part of the larger sociolinguistic variation study into ASL, Ceil Lucas and her
colleagues collected lexical data for 34 stimulus items from 207 signers in their study
(Lucas/Bayley/Valli 2001). They carefully distinguished between distinct lexical
variants with identical meanings and phonological variants of the same lexical item.
Thus, in ASL, there are different lexical variants for PIZZA, none of which share
handshape, movement, or location features. With the sign BANANA, however, one
lexical variant has a number of phonological variants which vary in the handshape on
the dominant hand. The researchers found that there was an average of seven lexical
variants for each sign, and that the signs EARLY, ARREST, FAINT, CEREAL, CHEAT, and
SOON showed the most variation, with CAKE, MICROWAVE-OVEN, RELAY, and FAINT
having the largest number of phonological variants of the same lexical item. Signers
from Massachusetts and Kansas/Missouri had the largest number of unique variants.
These examples of lexical variation in Western sign languages are likely to be due
to the fact that residential deaf schools were set up independently from each other in
different parts of such countries during the 19th and 20th centuries. When many of these
schools were established in the UK, for example, there was no single, centralised
training programme for educators of deaf children who wished to use sign language in
the classroom; thus the signs used within each school (by the teachers and by the
students) must have varied from school to school. Furthermore, in some schools, signed
communication was forbidden during the latter part of the 19th and for much of the 20th
century, leading to the creation of new signs by deaf children (because few language
models were available) while using their signed communication outside the classroom.
12

Because sign languages must be used face to face, and because opportunities for travel
were few, each variant tended to be passed down from one generation to the next
without spreading to other areas. In a 1980 survey (Kyle/Allsop 1982), for example,
40% of people surveyed in the Bristol deaf community claimed that they had never met
a deaf person from farther than 125 miles away. As a result, around half of the
individuals said they could not understand the varieties of BSL used in distant parts of
the UK.
Compared to these reports about considerable traditional lexical variation in BSL,
however, it has been claimed that ASL may have a relatively more standardised lexicon
(Valli/Lucas/Mulrooney 2005). In their lexical variation study, Ceil Lucas and her
colleagues found that of the 34 target items they studied, 27 included a variant that
appeared in the data from all seven sites across the USA. Lucas et al. (2001) suggested
that shared lexical forms exist alongside regional variants due to historical patterns of
transmission of ASL across the country. The residential schools in each of the seven
sites studied in the project all had direct or indirect links with the first school, the
American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. In the USA, the Hartford
school trained its deaf graduates as teachers who then were sent out across the USA to
establish new schools, leading to the spreading of a standardised variety of ASL across
the continent.
Travel within the UK and regular signing on broadcast television in the UK,
however, mean that British deaf people are now exposed to many more lexical variants
of BSL than they once were. It appears that this is the reason why deaf people
increasingly report much less trouble communicating with those from distant regions of
the UK (Woll 1994). Indeed, it is possible that this greater mixing of the variants may
lead to dialect levelling (Woll 1987). There is in fact much controversy amongst sign
language teachers surrounding the issue of dialect levelling and standardisation, with
conflict arising between preserving traditional diversity within BSL and the notion of
standardizing signs for teaching purposes (e.g., Elton/Squelch 2008).

4.2. Age

As mentioned earlier, the vast majority of deaf people have hearing families and the age
at which they acquire sign languages may be very late. Thus the intergenerational
transmission of sign languages is often problematic. This can result in considerable
differences across generations, such that younger BSL and NZSL signers sometimes
report difficulty in understanding older signers. A study reported in Woll (1994), for
example, indicated that younger signers (i.e., those under 45 years of age) recognised
significantly fewer lexical variants in BSL than older signers. An earlier study of the
Bristol and Cardiff communities suggested that the BSL colour signs BROWN, GREEN,
PURPLE, and YELLOW and numbers HUNDRED and THOUSAND used by older deaf people
were not used by younger deaf people from hearing families in Bristol (Woll 1983).
New signs had replaced these older forms, with the colour signs having an identical
manual form that was differentiated solely by mouthing the equivalent English words
for ‘brown’, ‘green’, etc.
Sutton-Spence, Woll, and Allsop (1990) conducted a major investigation of
sociolinguistic variation in fingerspelling in BSL, using a corpus of 19,450
fingerspelled items collected from 485 interviews with BSL signers on the deaf
television programme See Hear. They analysed the use of the British manual alphabet
in relation to four social factors: sex, region, age, and communication mode used. There
 13

were no effects due to gender on the use of fingerspelling, but age was a significant
factor. Sutton-Spence and her colleagues found that over 80% of all clauses included a
fingerspelled element in the data from those aged 45 years or older. In comparison,
fingerspelling was used in fewer than 40% of clauses in the data from participants aged
under 45. Region was also an important variable: the most use of fingerspelling was
found in the signing of individuals from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and central
England, with the least used by signers from the south-western region of England. Data
from signers in northern England and in the southeast included moderate amounts of
fingerspelling. Deaf individuals who used simultaneous communication (i.e., speaking
and signing at the same time) also used significantly more fingerspelling than those who
used signed communication alone.
A much smaller study of fingerspelling use in Auslan by Schembri and Johnston
(2007) found that that deaf signers aged 51 years or over made more frequent use of the
manual alphabet than those aged 50 or younger. This was particularly true of those aged
71 years or older.
In a short paper on the use of fingerspelling by deaf senior citizens in Baltimore,
Kelly (1991) suggested that older ASL signers appeared to make greater use of the
manual alphabet than younger signers. She also noted the use of mixed representations
in which older signers first used a sign, then a fingerspelled equivalent, and then
repeated the sign (e.g., INSULT I-N-S-U-L-T INSULT).
Padden and Gunsauls (2003) reported that a number of sociolinguistic factors
appear to be important in their data on ASL fingerspelling, although they did not
provide quantitative analyses that indicate whether such patterns were statistically
significant. They found that age and social class appeared to affect the use of
fingerspelled proper versus common nouns, with older and working-class signers much
more likely to fingerspell common nouns. They also stated that native signers
fingerspelled more frequently, with university-educated deaf native signers using the
most fingerspelling. This finding has been supported by the ASL sociolinguistic
variation work by Ceil Lucas and colleagues, who also report that more fingerspelling is
used by middle-class signers than working-class signers (Lucas/Bayley/Valli 2001).
In ASL, Auslan, and BSL, these age-related differences in fingerspelling usage
undoubtedly reflect the educational experiences of older deaf people, many of whom
were instructed using approaches that emphasized the use of fingerspelling. Language
attitudes may also play a role here, with older people possibly also retaining relatively
stronger negative attitudes towards sign language use, although this has not yet been the
focus of any specific empirical study. Language change is important here, too, as many
older signers appear to prefer the use of traditionally fingerspelled items rather than the
‘new signs’ used by younger people. For example, signs such as TRUCK, SOCCER, and
COFFEE were used by younger signers in the Schembri and Johnston (2007) dataset,
whereas only older individuals fingerspelled T-R-U-C-K, S-O-C-C-E-R, and C-O-F-F-E-E. In
NZSL, the changing status of sign language manifests itself in generational differences
in the extent of English mouthing, rather than fingerspelling, as a contact language
feature. A preliminary analysis of variation in mouthing in NZSL shows that signers
over the age of 65 years accompany an average of 84% of manual signs with mouthing
components, compared to 66% for signers under 40 years (McKee 2007).
The lexical variation study in ASL conducted by Lucas and her colleagues showed
that there were lexical variants for 24 of the 34 stimulus items that were unique to each
age group in their dataset. Olders signers produced unique forms for PERFUME, SNOW,
and SOON, for example, and did not use the same signs as younger signers for DOG and
PIZZA. They specifically investigated evidence of language change in two sets of signs.
14

First, they looked in detail at DEER, RABBIT, SNOW, and TOMATO because claims had
been made in earlier work that phonological change was underway in these signs with
DEER changing from two-handed to one-handed, RABBIT moving down from a head to
hands location, and SNOW and TOMATO undergoing reduction and deletion of segments.
Second, they were interested in the signs AFRICA and JAPAN because new, more
politically-correct variants of these signs had recently emerged as a result of the
perception that the older variants reflected stereotypes about the physical appearance of
people from these parts of the world. The picture that emerged from their analysis was
complex, however, with some evidence that language change was taking place for
RABBIT, SNOW, TOMATO, JAPAN, and AFRICA in some regions and in some social groups.
For instance, no signers in Maryland used the head variant of RABBIT any longer, and no
younger signers from California, Maryland, and Virginia used the old form of AFRICA
(see Figure 33.8). Contrary to what has previously been claimed, however, DEER was
produced in all regions by all age groups in both one- and two-handed forms, providing
little evidence of a change in progress.

RABBIT RABBIT AFRICA AFRICA

(older form) (new form) (old form) (new form)
Fig. 33.8: Lexical variation due to age in ASL. Copyright © 2001 by Duke University Press. Reprinted
with permission.

Variation in the NZSL numeral signs ONE to TWENTY is also systematically conditioned
by social characteristics, especially age (McKee/McKee/Major 2011). Like the
sociolinguistic variation in Auslan project mentioned above, the NZSL sociolinguistic
variation project drew on a corpus of NZSL generated by 138 deaf people in
conversations and interviews; the sample is balanced for region (Auckland, Palmerston
North/Wellington, and Christchurch), gender, and age group. All participants acquired
NZSL before the age of 12 years, and the majority of these before the age of seven.
Multivariate analysis of this data revealed that age has the strongest effect on variation
in the number system, followed by region and gender. With respect to region, signers
from Auckland (the largest urban centre) are slightly more likely to favour less common
variants than those from Wellington and Christchurch, who are more likely to favour
the more standard signs that are used in Australasian Signed English. Overall, men are
slightly more likely than women to favour less common forms, although gender has the
weakest effect of the three social factors.
Variation in numeral usage reveals diachronic change in NZSL, and increasing
standardisation in this subset of the lexicon: all 15–29 year olds produced the same
forms for numerals ONE to TWENTY, except for numbers NINE, ELEVEN, TWELVE, and
NINETEEN which exhibited minor variation. Apart from these exceptions, they uniformly
favoured signs introduced from Australasian Signed English. Signers over 30 years of
age, and especially above 45 years, exhibited more in-group variation (using a greater
 15

range of lexical variants), reflecting the fact that they were not exposed to a
conventional signed lexicon at school. These results confirm the powerful standardising
impact of introducing total communication approaches into deaf education in 1979.
Distinctive forms produced by the youngest and oldest age groups show that
numerals in NZSL (particularly numbers above FIVE) have been partly re-lexified,
mostly because Australasian Signed English forms (themselves based on Auslan signs)
replaced older variants. For certain numbers, such as EIGHT, the change is complete, in
that none of the youngest age group use older forms of this numeral, shown in Figure
33.9 as A, C, and D. In other cases, alternate variants still co-exist, or in some cases, a
change is apparently in progress towards a standard form.

A B C D
Fig. 33.9: Variation due to age in NZSL EIGHT. Copyright © 2011 by Gallaudet University Press.
Reprinted with permission.

4.3. Gender and sexuality

Although anecdotal reports suggest that a small number of Auslan lexical variants may
be used differently by women and men (e.g., the different signs HELLO or HI described
in Johnston/Schembri 2007), there have not yet been any empirical studies
demonstrating systematic lexical variation in any BANZSL variety due to gender. A
number of studies have suggested that gender may influence lexical variation in ASL,
however. Lucas, Bayley, and Valli (2001) report that only 8 of the 34 stimulus items
they studied did not show variants unique to either men or women, building on earlier
findings by Mansfield (1993).
Quite significant lexical variation based on gender has been the focus of research
into Irish Sign Language (IrSL; Le Master/Dwyer 1991; Leeson/Grehan 2004). For over
a century, the Irish deaf community maintained distinct vocabularies associated with the
different traditions of sign language use in the single-sex residential deaf schools in
Dublin: St Mary’s School for Deaf Girls and St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys. Using a
set of 153 stimuli, Le Master and Dywer (1991) reported that 106 of the items were
distinct, although 63% of these were related in some way. The male and female signs
for GREEN, for example, differ in handshape, location, and movement, whereas the
men’s and women’s signs for APPLE and DAUGHTER share hand configuration (see
Figure 33.10). Although these lexical differences have lessened in contemporary IrSL,
Leeson and Grehan (2004) suggest that such gender differences continue to exist in the
language.
16

APPLE

DAUGHTER
Fig. 33.10: Examples of lexical variation in IrSL due to gender. Copyright © Barbara LeMaster.
Reprinted with permission.

Gender differences in the use of fingerspelling in ASL have been reported by

Mulrooney (2002), drawing on a dataset of 1,327 fingerspelled tokens collected from
interviews with 8 signers. She found evidence in her dataset that men were more likely
to produce non-citation forms than women (e.g., fingerspelling produced outside the
usual ipsilateral area near the shoulder and/or with some of the manual letters deleted).
A number of other aspects of language use have been reported to vary according to
gender. Wulf (1998) claimed, based on a sample of 10 native and near-native signers,
that the men in her dataset consistently demonstrated a difference in the lower boundary
of signing space, with the males ending their production of signs at a lower location
than the women. Coates and Sutton-Spence (2001) proposed that female BSL signers
used different styles of conversational interaction than males. In their dataset, deaf
women tended to set up a collaborative conversational floor in which multiple
conversations could take place simultaneously, while males signers generally took
control of the floor one at a time and used fewer supportive back-channelling strategies
(see chapter 22, Communicative Interaction, for details).
Studies conducted by Rudner and Butowsky (1981) and by Kleinfeld and Warner
(1997) compared American gay and heterosexual signers’ knowledge of ASL signs
related to gay identity. Both studies reported varied perceptions of different variants of
the signs LESBIAN and GAY, with straight and gay individuals differing in their sign
usage and in their judgements of commonly-used signs related to sexuality. Kleinfeld
and Warner found, for example, that the fingerspelled loan sign #GAY appeared to be
most acceptable to gay and lesbian signers, and that its use was spreading across the
USA.
 17

4.4. Ethnicity and religion

Research has established the existence of a distinct African-American variety of ASL

(e.g., Aramburo 1989; Lucas/Bayley/Reed/Wulf 2001). Like the gender differences in
IrSL, the emergence of this lexical variation reflects the historical context of American
deaf education, with specific schools having been established for African-American
deaf children in some southern states during the period of segregation in the 19th and
20th century. Croneberg’s lexical variation study mentioned above, for example,
identified considerable lexical differences between the signs of Black and White signers
living in the same city in North Carolina. Work by Aramburo (1989) showed that
African-American ASL signers had unique lexical variants, such as FLIRT, SCHOOL
(shown in Figure 33.11), and BOSS. Further supporting evidence for lexical variation
was found in the sociolinguistic variation study conducted by Ceil Lucas and her
colleagues: of the 34 stimuli, only 6 did not have uniquely African-American variants.

Fig. 33.11: Example of lexical variation due to ethnicity in ASL; the sign SCHOOL: white variant (left),
African-American variant (right). Copyright © 2005 by Gallaudet University Press. Reprinted with
permission.

More recent work investigating the Black variety of ASL (McCaskill/Lucas/Bayley/Hill

2011) indicates that a number of other differences can be identified, in addition to use of
specific lexical variants. Findings suggest that, compared to White signers, Black
signers make greater use of two-handed variants, produce fewer lowered variants of
signs in the class of signs including KNOW (see section 3.4), and use significantly more
repetition. A study drawing on narratives elicited from 24 signers (12 Black, 12 White)
tested the claim that Black signers use a larger signing space than White signers, and
found that this did appear to be the case.
More work on variation due to ethnicity has been undertaken for NZSL. NZSL
exists in contact with both the dominant host language of English and Māori as the
spoken language of the indigenous people of New Zealand. There is no empirical
evidence that Māori signers’ use of NZSL varies systematically from that of non-Māori
deaf people, whose social networks and domains of NZSL use substantially overlap. It
could be expected, however, that the NZSL lexicon would reflect some degree of
contact with spoken Māori, albeit constrained by modality difference and by the
minority status of both languages in society. Contact between hearing speakers of Māori
and the Māori deaf community over the last decade has led to the coinage of signs and
translations of Māori concepts that are in the process of becoming established
‘borrowings’ into NZSL – used for both referential purposes and to construct Māori
18

deaf ethnic identity. These borrowings (locally referred to as ‘Māori signs’, see Figure
33.12), such as WHANAU (extended family), MARAE (meeting place), and HAKA (a Māori
dance ritual), are constructed by several processes: semantic extension of existing
NZSL signs by mouthing Māori equivalents (e.g., WHANAU which is also a widely used
BANZSL sign meaning ‘family’), loan translations of Māori word forms, and coining of
neologisms (e.g., MARAE and HAKA) (McKee et al., 2007).

FAMILY/WHANAU MARAE HAKA

Fig. 33.12: Examples of Māori signs in NZSL. Copyright © 1997 by University of Auckland
Press/Bridget Williams Books. Reprinted with permission.

As is also true of New Zealand, separate schools for Catholic deaf children were
established in Britain and Australia. All of these institutions employed IrSL as the
language of instruction until the 1950s. As a result, an older generation of signers in
some regions of the UK and Australia make some use of IrSL signs and the Irish
manual alphabet, particularly when in the company of those who share their educational
background. Some IrSL signs have been borrowed into regional varieties of BSL (e.g.,
READY, GREEN) and Auslan (e.g., HOME, COUSIN) (Brennan 1992; Johnston/Schembri
2007).
Generally, there are no documented distinctions in the sign language used by
various ethnic groups in the UK and Australia, partly because the education of deaf
children in these countries has, for the most part, never been segregated by ethnicity.
Many deaf people in the UK from minority ethnic backgrounds are, however,
increasingly forming social groupings which combine their deaf and ethnic identity (for
example, social groups formed by deaf people with south Asian backgrounds in
London), and thus we might expect some sociolinguistic variation reflecting these
identities to be developing, but this has not yet been the focus of any research. One
exception to this generalisation, however, is the British Jewish deaf community, many
of whom were educated in a separate Jewish deaf school that existed in London from
1866 to 1965 (Jackson 1990; Weinberg 1992). A book of BSL signs used to represent
key elements of Judaism was published in 2003 (Jewish Deaf Association 2003).

5. Grammatical variation

There has been little research into morphosyntactic variation in ASL and BANZSL
varieties, and there have not yet been empirical studies demonstrating whether there are
consistent differences between signers due to gender, age, social class, or region. Some
gender differences in the use of simultaneous constructions and topic-marking have
been reported for IrSL, but the dataset was small and thus far from conclusive
(Leeson/Grehan 2004). In contrast, differences in grammatical skills in native and non-
 19

native signers have been reported several times in the literature (e.g.,
Boudreault/Mayberry 2006).
Observation suggests that in many contexts, for example, signers will vary in their
choice and combination of the morphological, syntactic, and discourse structures that
are described elsewhere in this volume. Schembri (2001) showed, for example, that
native signers of Auslan varied in their use of ‘classifier’ handshapes to represent the
motion of humans and vehicles (see chapter 8, Classifiers, for details). In his dataset,
both the upturned Y-handshape and the upright B-may be used to represent a person
moving, and a ]-handshape with the palm oriented sideways or downwards may
represent vehicles. Schembri et al. (2002) and Johnston (2001) examined noun-verb
pairs in Auslan, finding that not all signers made use of the same set of subtle
differences in movement and other features sometimes used to distinguish signs
referring to concrete objects from those used to indicate actions (see chapter 5 for
discussion of word classes).
Similarly, Johnston and Schembri (2007) describe how Auslan signers have two
major strategies available to them when producing sentences with agreement/indicating
verbs. First, they may use an SVO constituent order of signs to represent actor versus
patient roles (e.g., MOTHER ASK FATHER ‘mother asks father’). Alternatively, they may
convey this information by spatial modifications to the verb sign, using orders other
than SVO (e.g., MOTHER+lf FATHER+rt lf+ASK+rt ‘mother asks father’). The linguistic,
stylistic, and social factors that influence these types of choices have not yet been the
focus of any research.
As part of the sociolinguistic variation in ASL, NZSL and Auslan projects
described above, variation in the presence of subject noun phrases was investigated
(Lucas/Bayley/Valli 2001; McKee/Schembri/McKee/Johnston 2011). Like other sign
languages, ASL, NZSL and Auslan all exhibit significant variation in the expression of
subject arguments. The ASL study drew on a dataset of 429 clauses containing only
plain verbs. The Auslan and NZSL studies used larger datasets of 976 and 2145 clauses
respectively. The ASL and Auslan datasets were collected from spontaneous narratives
produced by 19 deaf ASL signers and 20 deaf Auslan signers, while the NZSL included
33 deaf participants. The overall results were remarkably similar. McKee and
colleagues found that half (NZSL) to two-thirds (Auslan) of clauses had no overt
subject noun phrase, not unlike the figure in ASL (65%). Factors that conditioned an
increased tendency to omit subject arguments in NZSL, Auslan and ASL included the
following: use of a subject that identified a referent that was the same as the one in the
immediately preceding clause; the subject having a non-first person referent (first
person arguments strongly favoured the retention of overt subjects in Auslan and ASL);
the use of role shift; and (for Auslan and ASL) the presence of some degree of English
influence in the clause (English not being a pro-drop language). These linguistic factors
are similar to those reported to be at work in other pro-drop languages such as Spanish
(e.g., Bayley/Pease-Alvarez 1997) or Bislama (Meyerhoff 2000). In addition, the NZSL
and ASL studies found evidence for social factors playing a role in variable subject
expression. For ASL, it was found that women and older signers (i.e., over 55 years of
age) favoured overt subjects, whereas men and younger signers (i.e., aged 15–54) did
not. It may be that women and older signers produce more pronouns than men and
younger signers because of a perception that the use of more English-like structures
represents a prestige variety of signed communication (certainly, this pattern with
gender variation is characteristic of many spoken languages; see Labov 1990). In
NZSL, age and ethnicity were important, with middle aged (i.e., 40-64 years old) and
non-Māori New Zealanders more likely to drop subjects. Unlike ASL and NZSL,
20

however, multivariate statistical analysis of the Auslan data suggested that social factors
such as the signer’s age and gender were not significant.

6. Register and stylistic variation

A number of studies have investigated variation in discourse. Collins and Petronio

(1998), for example, investigated the ASL used by deaf-blind individuals, while Mesch
(2000) undertook similar studies for Swedish Sign Language. Amongst other things, the
ASL study found that yes-no questions were not conveyed by the non-manual signals
(e.g., brow raise) used by sighted signers, but instead involved use of the manual
channel, either by means of an additional outward movement of the signs in an
interrogative clause or by the addition of a question mark sign (see chapter 23, Sign
Languages in the World, for further details).
The work of June Zimmer (1989) on ASL represents one of the few studies on
stylistic variation in a sign language. Until further studies are carried out, no firm
conclusions can be drawn about what register variation looks like in ASL, or indeed any
sign language, on the basis of this study, but we will outline Zimmer’s findings here
because they suggest issues for future research into this area.
In Zimmer’s (1989) study, data for her analysis came from three videotapes of one
deaf native ASL signer (i) giving a lecture on linguistics, (ii) presenting a talk to a small
audience, and (iii) conducting a television interview. All three texts are somewhat
formal in style because each is planned and not spontaneous, and all are performed for
an audience. However, the degree of formality in each text appears to be different.
Zimmer found that the lecture was particularly different from the talk and interview, at
all levels of structural organisation. A closer inspection also revealed that parts of each
text were different from other parts, which she referred to as intra-textual register
variation.
A number of phonological differences between the texts were noted. For example,
the signing space appeared to be much larger in the lecture, with signs being made
beyond the top of the head, centre of the chest, and shoulder width (this may simply
reflect the signer’s use of ‘loud’ signing rather than any true phonological difference;
see Crasborn 2001). Signs in the lecture also appeared to be longer in duration. Role
shifts (see chapter 17) involved shifting of the entire torso or sideways movement by a
step or two in the lecture, whereas only head movements were used in the talk and
interview. Hand-switching (in which the non-dominant hand is used as the dominant
hand) was used in all three texts, often with pronouns, but was used most frequently in
the lecture. There was less assimilation of the handshape in pronoun signs in the lecture
(e.g., fewer handshape changes in INDEX1 from B to ]). Lastly, there was less
perseveration and anticipation in the lecture, that is, there were fewer instances in which
the non-dominant hand in a two-handed sign appeared before the sign started or
remained held in space after the sign had finished.
In terms of lexical and morphological differences in the three situations, Zimmer
(1989) reported that certain colloquial ASL signs, such as WHAT-FOR and PEA-BRAIN,
appeared in the talk and in portions of direct speech in the lecture but did not occur
elsewhere. She also noted that conjunctions such as AND and THEN were used more
frequently in the lecture. Exaggerated reduplication of signs to indicate that some action
was difficult and of long duration occurred more in the lectures, but similar meanings
were realised through non-manual features, such as squinting eyes and the ‘ee’
intensifier, in the informal talk.
 21

Several differences in syntactic and discourse features were found. For example,
pseudo-cleft structures were used extensively in the lecture, but less so in the other two
texts. Topicalisation was used more in the informal talk than the lecture. Discourse
markers appeared more often in the lecture, such as the sign NOW when used not to talk
about time, but to segment the lecture into smaller parts. Lastly, pointing with the non-
dominant hand at a word fingerspelled on the dominant hand (e.g., D-E-A-F, A-T-T-I-T-U-
D-E) only occurred in the lecture (see Figure 33.13).

D -E -A -F & pointing sign

Fig. 33.13: Use of a pointing sign following fingerspelling. Copyright © 1989 by Academic Press.
Reprinted with permission.

Most intra-textual variation occurred in the lecture, where there were three types of
register variation. The body of the lecture was formal in style, but reported speech
interspersed through the lecture had features of a more casual style. Some specific
examples had a metaphorical and poetic style usually associated with signed theatre and
poetry. The signer represented hearing researchers as a vehicle, for example, and deaf
researchers as a boat, and then produced a simultaneous sign construction with two
depicting verbs showing both moving along together (see chapter 22, Communicative
Interaction, for another type of stylistic variation, i.e. variation in the use of politeness
strategies depending on situational context).

7. Conclusion

In this chapter, we have explored some of the research conducted in the past few
decades on sociolinguistic variation in deaf communities, with a particular focus on
ASL, BSL, Auslan, and NZSL. We have shown how, just as in spoken language
communities, variation is often not random, but is conditioned by linguistic, social, and
stylistic factors. Although our understanding has grown significantly in the last decade,
Lucas and Bayley (2010) have pointed out that much work remains to be done. The
major sociolinguistic studies of ASL, Auslan, and NZSL have covered a number of
different regions in each country, but have not yet examined any particular region’s deaf
community to the same depth that is common in sociolinguistic studies of spoken
languages. In particular, the quantitative studies here need to be followed up by more
detailed qualitative and ethnographic work: we need to understand how signers
proactively choose from among the specific phonological, lexical and grammatical
variants to present themselves in specific ways (i.e., as markers of specific identities).
Moreover, many regions were not included in these studies (no rural regions or small
22

towns were visited in the Australian study, for example). Other sociolinguistic variables
need to be investigated, and stylistic factors need to be more fully explored. The
influence of immigrant communities and the impact of the many late learners and
hearing and deaf second-language users on established sign languages is also important.
Pursuing such research questions will increase our knowledge about the sociolinguistics
of sign languages, as well as broaden our understanding of variation in language
generally.

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C./Smith, Dorothy L./Snider, Bruce D. (eds.), The Deaf Way: Perspectives from the International
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Adam Schembri, Melbourne (Australia)

Trevor Johnston, Sydney (Australia)

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