Accent or not? Language attitudes towards regional variation in British Sign Language
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21196836 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Katherine Rowley (0000-0002-4261-9288, University College London, corresponding author), Kearsy Cormier (0000-0001-6071-7706, University College London) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 919-943 |
| Publication date | 2023-07-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Applied Linguistics Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1868-6303 • E-ISSN: 1868-6311 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/applirev-2020-0144 |
| OpenAlex | W3187236288 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 39 |
British Sign Language (BSL) has been shown to have a high degree of regional variation especially at the lexical level. This study explores awareness and attitudes of the British deaf community towards this regional variation. We studied interview data from the BSL Corpus ( http://bslcorpusproject.org/data ) from 121 deaf, BSL signers from six regions across the UK including Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, London and Manchester, focusing on responses to five questions in relation to regional variation in BSL. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis, following (Braun, V. & V. Clark. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2). 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa ). Findings reveal that BSL signers exhibited overall high levels of meta-linguistic awareness, as many of their attitudes and beliefs were in line with what has been reported in relation to linguistic behaviour with BSL such as mouthing, fingerspelling and accommodation. In addition, BSL signers seem to place enormous value on regional variation in BSL, believing that such variation contributes to the richness of BSL as a language and puts it on equal footing with the surrounding majority language, i.e. English. We explore the implications of these attitudes towards a broader understanding of language ideologies, including the concept of accent
Linguistics · Qualitative research · Sign language · Social science · Sociology · Thematic analysis · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology
Understanding Deaf Culture
The Linguistics of British Sign Language
Thematic analysis of qualitative research data
Chasing the Mythical Ten Percent
Sociolinguistic Variation in the Nativisation of BSL Fingerspelling
“So, why do you sign?” Deaf and hearing new signers, their motivation, and revitalisation policies for sign languages
Whose ASL counts? Linguistic prescriptivism and challenges in the context of parent sign language curriculum development
Sign Language Structure
Do Signers Understand Regional Varieties of a Sign Language? A Lexical Recognition Experiment
Regional Sign Language Varieties in Contact
Deaf Parents of Cochlear-Implanted Children
Why educational language plans sometimes fail
Planning sign languages
Variation and recent change in fingerspelling in British Sign Language
Attitudes versus Actions
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Orientations in Language Planning
Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization
Language attitudes and sociolinguistic behaviour
Ideologised values for British accents1
Ensuring language acquisition for deaf children
Language ideologies in the shared signing community of Adamorobe
Signed languages and globalization
| Citations per year | 2.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |