The grammar of movement

It is language that distinguishes Homo sapiens from animals. A complex system in which smaller units combine into larger units, into sentences, into statements. Language is spoken, written down – and it is signed. “In sign language”, says Franz Dotter, “we find all the phenomena that we know from spoken languages, just expressed visually.” Sign language is not a haphazard support tool, it is a full language in its own right, a means of communication. And yet, some areas of sign language are simply terra incognita. How, for instance, can you emphasise something in sign language? How are texts segmented into structures, when instruments such as pitch, tone of voice and loudness are not available? “By pauses”, notes Dotter, “pauses and deliberate indicators (cues), such as blinking, palm position, changes in movements, looks, movements of the head and the body.”

Gestures – the evolutionary neighbour of sign language

This is the core of the project supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF entitled Segmentation and Structuring of Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) Texts led by Franz Dotter at the Centre for Sign Language and Deaf Communication at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. With the help of two methods for identification and analysis, the project team determines manual and non-manual elements in signed texts. “We asked both ÖGS-signers and non-signers to identify segmentation units and to indicate the cues they perceived.” It was shown that both groups were able to perceive cues given by the hands and by pauses. People with no signing skills discerned a remarkable 40% of these cues. The situation is different for non-manual cues, such as looks or head and body movements, which were almost exclusively understood by the group of native signers only. “Sign languages have always been a means of communication, even for hearing people”, relates Dotter, “as we know from Australia and America, where signs were used for taboo words that one was not allowed to say aloud, but also for communication between different tribes.” The gestures that accompany spoken languages are in some sense an evolutionary ‘neighbour’ of sign languages: this so-called ‘body language’ consisting of hand and body movements as well as facial expressions is found universally. Walking two fingers across the back of your hand to signal discreetly it’s time to go, putting a finger to your lips, hand swiping and waving, the ‘conducting’ which unconsciously accompanies the act of speaking.

Sign language – not an artificial product

It is not known exactly how the sign language of deaf people developed, explains Dotter. “Presumably it has long been used among deaf communities. As of about 1770 and starting in France, systematic education in sign language began to be given to deaf people. The teaching in sign language is a product of the era of enlightenment – and even then it was recognised that no new sign had to be invented if a deaf community already had one for something.” Sign language is not an artificial product A caesura occurred in 1880. According to the “oralists”, the deaf were supposed to speak and not use sign language. The renaissance of sign language came about only in the 1970s and 1980s, when it was recognised as a full language. This is one of the reasons why the general public today perceives it as a recent phenomenon – and why research on it started a relatively short time ago. “It is highly interesting to gain insights into the development of a language”, is Dotter’s comment on the situation.