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Hearing and Deaf Signers on Providence Island
William Washabaugh
Sign Language Studies, Volume 24, Fall 1979, pp. 191-214 (Article)
Published by Gallaudet University Press
DOI: 10.1353/sls.1979.0003
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8/19/2019 24.Washabaugh Hearing and Deaf Signers Providence Island
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SLS
24
1979),
191-214
@
by
Linstok
Press,
Inc.
HEARING
AND
DEAF
SIGNERS
ON
PROVIDENCE
ISLAND
William
Washabaugh
Introduction
Providence
Island,
Colombia,
harbors
a
small number
of
deaf
persons
who
have developed
a
manual
sign
language.
The
island
(see
Figure
1) is
small
in size
(15
square
miles)
and in popula-
tion
2500-3000).
The
people
of
Providence are
isolated
from the
British West
Indies
with
which
they
are
culturally
affiliated.
They
are governed by Colombia,
but
their pol-
itical
and
economic
links
to
the distant
mainland
are weak.
In short,
Providence is
not only
a
geographical
island; it is
a
cultural, economic, and
political
island as
well.
The
deaf people
of Providence Island
are
scattered
in
villages
around the perimeter
of this
mountainous island in
such a way that a few of them live in each of the seven
villages. Three deaf persons
live in Town, one
in Bailey,
three in
Rocky Point,
two
in
Smoothwater
Bay, five in
South-
west Bay,
two in Lazy
Hill. Three
deaf persons
regularly
live in Old Town, though
they are temporarily
absent
while
recuperating
from
illnesses. One
deaf person
who
resided
in
Bailey for
some twenty-three years
now resides in
the
neighboring
island
of San
Andres.
Most
of
the deaf people
are integrated
into the daily
round
of life
on
Providence
Island;
though
one
middle aged
male
in Town
has
been
confined
and
isolated by
his parents
since
his youth.
The
integration
of
the deaf into the
social
life
of Providence
is facilitated
by the
character
of
the
island's
economy.
Traditionally
the
mainstay of the
economy
has
been
a
combination
of
fishing,
slash-and-burn
horti-
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Sign Language Studies 24
culture,
cattle-raising,
and fruit
gathering.
The
products
of
these
labors, when
augmented
by the cash
returned by
the
men who have
shipped
out
to work
in
the
merchant
marine,
provide
for the material necessities
of life on
Providence.
Formal education
has long
existed
on
Providence,
but except
for
training a few to take up
work outside the island,
that
formal education has
not trained persons to
handle the work-
aday
tasks that they
face on their home
ground.
This
subsistence
economy
is
one
to which
a
deaf person
can
make as significant
contribution as a hearing
person. Not
a few deaf persons
are
well reputed
in
their villages for their
cooking,
washing,
sewing,
fishing, farming, and cattle
raising.
The
participation
of the deaf
in
the routine
subsistence
activities
of
the
island has led to
a rather more
positive
valuation of the deaf and their language than is
realized
in
the
United
States. Woodward (1978a: 66) has shown that a
majority
of
the hearing
on
Providence judge the
sign
language
of the deaf (which will be
referred to
here as PSL) to be an
autochthonous and
systematic language,
which is distinct
from the oral
language
of the island
(Woodward
1978b). These
favorable
attitudes
and judgments
contrast
sharply with the
negative
attitudes that the majority of hearing
Americans
hold
in
regard to
the American
deaf and
their
language.
Both
the subsistence
character
of the
economy
and the
favorable attitudes
of the hearing
toward
the deaf promote
the
acquisition
of the
deaf sign
language by
the hearing
on
Provi-
dence Island.
This natural,
untutored
acquisiton
of a sign
language
by
hearing
persons
is a
rare
process, and one
that
has
not
been described
for any
other community.
The des-
cription
that follows
is intended to fill
this gap in
the literature.
A sociolinguistic
profile
The
deaf on
Providence
of the signing
community.
Island,
as
in
the
United
States,
are for the
most
part
born into hearing families.
There is
no
deaf person
on
Providence whose
parents
are
deaf.
In
consequence,
the deaf
must accommodate
their behavior
to the needs
of
the
hearing.
And
conversely,
in
every deaf
person's
family there
are
hearing
persons
who
must attune much
of their daily
behavior
to the
needs
of
the deaf.
A second
significant
sociolinguistic
fact
is
that
the
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sh b ugh
Santa
Catilina
Is.
Town
Old Town
Mountain
Lazy
Hill
T
n
Bailey
Freshwater Bay
Rocky Point
Sothes:BySmoothwater
Bay
Southwest
Bay
---
.
Bottomhouse
Providence
Island
Figure
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Sign
Language
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24
deaf
people are
scattered
in
different
villages
around
the
island.
Being
so scattered,
the deaf
of one
village
interact
with the hearing of their
own
village
much
more frequently
than they
interact
with
the deaf
of
other
villages. The
deaf
of different
villages
do not
join into groups,
form clubs,
or
otherwise
ally themselves
with
one another
so
as to deal
corporately
with
the
world or
with the hearing-in
this
respect
the
deaf
of
Providence
Island
differ
from
the deaf
in
the United
States (Schein
1968).
In
summary, two
factors
work to promote
interaction
between
the deaf and
the
hearing
on
Providence
Island.
First, the
deaf are born
to
hearing parents;
and
second, the
deaf
are scattered in
different
villages.
The
isolation
of (a
few)
deaf persons
in a world of
hearing persons
leads
the
deaf and the
hearing
to accommo-
date
to
each other's
needs.
But the isolation
of
the
deaf
is
not so complete
as
to
prevent
them
from
constructing
and
transmitting
a vernacular signed
language. Intrahousehold
and
interhousehold
interactions
between
deaf persons facili-
tate
the genesis and
transmission
of PSL.
These
sorts of
interactions
are described
below.
The deaf
are born
to
hearing parents
and
that locates
the
deaf in the
world of
the
hearing.
But
deafness
runs
in
families and
by that fact
the deaf are located in
a
deaf
world
as
well.
To be
exact,
fifteen
of the
nineteen
deaf persons
enumerated above live with
deaf
siblings. Most
dramatically,
in
Southwest Bay
three
of
the
five
deaf persons
living in that
village are the children
of the same parents.
The other two
deaf
persons
in
the
village
are
children
of a hearing sister
of
those
three deaf
persons. This collocation
of
deaf
persons
in households establishes
the
social groups in
which the
sign language of Providence
Island is generated.
These deaf
households
are
linguistically
critical masses,
for
from
them
the
vernacular
language
of the deaf
arises through
the activity
of unconscious
semiotic
processes
of code
construction
(Washabaugh in
press).
Inter-village
interaction
between
the
deaf
goes on
right
alongside
the
interaction
of
the
deaf
within
households.
Such
inter-village
interactions
were
not
always
so
frequent
on
Providence.
They
have
been
facilitated
in
recent
years
by the
construction
of
a
road
around
the
island
in
1961.
Now
inter-
Village
interaction-severely
hampered
in
former
times
by
mountains
jutting
out
into
the
sea
and
by
impassable
mires
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in
the
rainy season-is a
matter
of
hopping
a pick-up
truck.
The
deaf and the hearing
members
of deaf households move
about as frequently as anyone else,
and
inevitably they make
contact with
the
deaf
of other villages.
This
inter-village
contact between
members
of
deaf households,
though
irregu-
lar,
facilitates
the homogenization of PSL (however see
Woodward,
DeSantis,
&
Washabaugh
in
press).
The foregoing
description
can be distilled
and pack-
aged into
a
sociolinguistic
model
of
the
PSL
community.
Such a model
will
have
the general
form
of concentric
circles
(Figure 2). The
core
of
the
signing community is
made
up of the
deaf
siblings
from whose interactions
the
rudimentary
sign
language arises. Outside
of but
in
close
contact with
the
deaf sibling core are
the
hearing members
of
the
deaf household.
These are
the hearing
persons
with
whom the deaf
interact daily
and who
often
seem
to
acquire
a great facility
in the language
of the
deaf.
Hearing
acquaintances
of
deaf
families
Hearing
members
of
deaf
households
-
Deaf si lin s
Village
1
Village 3
a -
Intra-village
interaction
Village
2
b
-
Inter-village interaction
Figure
2 .
A sociolinguistic
model
of
the Providence
Island
signing community.
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Sign
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24
Two
qualifications
about
the
interaction
between
the
deaf
and the
hearing members
of deaf
households
are
worth
stating.
First,
where deaf
households
are
extended
and
con-
tain a
great
span
of ages,
and
where
the
deaf
are
either
advanced in age
or
are
very
young, some
hearing members
of the household
are
either
too old
or too
young
to interact
with the
deaf
members.
Thus in
Rocky Point one deaf man
lives with
his parents and his sister and his
sister's
family.
The
sister
has
acquired
a
great
facility with
the
sign lan-
guage,
but
her
children
seem
to
be
less
competent
(quanti-
tative evidence
for
this observation will be supplied below).
Second, deaf households are sometimes
so restricted
in
size that
they
contain no hearing members. Such is the case
where the deaf
are
advanced in age and where the hearing
members
of
the
household
have died
or
moved
away.
In Old
Town
and
in
Lazy
Hill deaf
siblings
live alone with
each
other,
but
they have established
close
bonds with
certain
hearing neighbors.
Those
hearing neighbors,
for
their part,
have
acquired
an
advanced
competence in the
sign
language
(again
evidence
will be supplied
below).
Besides the hearing members
of
deaf households, there
are a larger number
of hearing acquaintances
of
the deaf.
These
hearing persons
do not interact with
the
deaf as
fre-
quently as do
the members
of deaf households,
but
never-
theless they
do work and play alongside
the
deaf
daily
or
weekly
or monthly. Some of
the acquaintances
are
peers and
intimate friends,
who
either
live near the deaf
or who
deal
with the
deaf daily.
Others are
casual
acquaintances,
who
know the
deaf but
do
not
interact
with them
so frequently.
Finally,
in
the outermost
ring of
the model
are the
persons
who
have knowledge of the
deaf
but do
not
interact with them.
To
recapitulate, every
set
of deaf siblings forms
the
core for a set
of
concentric
rings. The
hearing
who
occupy
the closest
ring
around the
core
are those
who interact
most
frequently
with the deaf.
They
seem to
have
acquired
greatest
proficiency
in PSL.
The hearing
in
the
outermost
rings
have
least
knowledge
of
the
sign
language.
For
every
such
set
of
deaf
siblings
on
Providence
Ishand
there
exists
a
similar
set
of
concentrically
organized
rings
of
hearing
persons.
In
the
commonplace
events
of
daily
life
the
different
concentrically
organized
sets
of
persons
interact
with
and
influence
one
another.
It
is
not
merely
the
deaf
of
a
village
who
interact
with
the
deaf
of
another
village,
but
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the deaf of one village interact with the
hearing
of different
levels
or circles of another
village, and the hearing
of one
village also
interact
with
the hearing
and deaf
of
another
village (Figure 2b).
Given
this complexity of interaction,
it seems
plausible
to argue
that
while the deaf-with-deaf
interaction
initiates
PSL,
deaf-with-hearing
interaction
contributes
significantly
to
its development .
Some
anecdotes will illustrate and flesh out this
model
of
PSL development.
First, I observed that the trans-
mission
of the
sign
language
material outward
from
the
deaf core
to the hearing rings
of
a village
can be
quite
rapid.
A research
assistant
and I spent the
better part
of
a day working with a deaf woman
unaccompanied
by any
other
deaf
or hearing person. We
struggled
with her to eli-
cit
from
her
some
metalinguistic
observations
on
her
lan-
guage.
While our efforts went
unrewarded, the
deaf woman
acquired during the
session the ASL
sign
NAME-there
being
no
equivalent sign
in
PSL-and
a
knowledge
of
how
to
use
it
appropriately.
Ten days
later we
observed
the
deaf woman's
hearing
brother interact
with her
deaf brother. The
hearing
brother,
without
my provocation,
employed
the sign
NAME;
the deaf
brother
responded
appropriately.
This
anecdote
sug-
gests
that some
hearing
members
of deaf
households
participate
in
the
earliest stages
of
sign language
construction
and
pro-
mote
the
transmission
of signs
to
the hearing
and
to
the deaf
alike.
The
preceding
anecdote
illustrates
the development
of
signing
as it moves
from
the
core
to
the
rings of
the concentric
circles.
But
signing
at the
core
is
itself
influenced
by the
hearing
persons
at
the
outer
rings.
The
observations
below
will
illustrate
the
manner
in
which
the
deaf
incorporate
into
their
signing
some material
drawn from
the
world
of the
hearing.
It
is
a case
that not
a few
signs employed
by
the
deaf
are
drawn
directly
from
the communications
of
the
hearing.
Signs
like
LIE
and
BAD
are
constituted
of
movements
of
the
mouth
that
imitate,
with
exaggeration,
the
movements
speakers
make
in pronouncing
the
words
lie
and
bad.
[Though Providence
is
politically
part of
Colombia,
its spoken
language
is an
English-based
pidgin
]
Second,
the
signs
FAMILY,
LENGTH,
and STINGY
are
but
a
few of the
signs
of
PSL
that
also
serve
as gesticulations
( emblems )
in
the
hearing
community.
It
is possible
that
these
gesticulations
of
the
hearing
were re-
coded
by
the deaf
and
incorporated
into
their
signing.
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The
significance
of these
anecdotes
and
in fact
of
the
whole
sociolinguistic
model shown
in
Figure
2b
is
that
al-
though
sign language
genesis
may
result from
deaf-with-deaf
interaction,
the development and
final
shape of
the
sign
lan-
guage cannot be understood
without
a consideration of
deaf-
with-hearing interaction.
The
target
.
The
foregoing
description
has
shown
that
the
hearing
play
a
significant
role
in
the
signing
community
of
Providence
Island.
The
ultimate
aim of
the sub-
sequent
description will
be to
reveal the
manner
in which the
hearing
acquire competence
in
PSL
syntax so as to
make clear
and
specific the nature of the contribution
of the hearing
to
the development
of PSL.
But it will
be necessary
to
preface
this study of the
acquisition of sign by the
hearing
with
a
brief
review of the general nature
of sign languages,
of
some
specific
problems in describing
sign
language structure,
and
of the
specific
character of
PSL.
The
acquisition of PSL, or
of any vernacular sign
lan-
guage,
by hearing
persons is problematic,
because
all
sign
language vernaculars
seem to
be organized according
to
principles
some of which are
unlike
those of spoken languages.
Sign language
vernaculars
generally
make greater
use of sim-
ultaneously
collocated
expressions than
do
spoken
languages
(Stokoe
1976); they make greater use of
iconic devices
(Fried-
man
1977);
greater use of
repetition
and
less use
of
redundancy
of
expression
than do spoken
languages
(Bellugi
&
Fischer
1972). In
regard to syntax, Fischer
1975) has shown that
ASL
makes
no
use of morphological
affixing
but frequent
use of
semantic
context,
verb
directionality,
object
incorporation,
and
word
order to disambiguate
sentences. I.
M.
Schlesinger
1970) has
argued
that
Israeli
sign language
makes no use
of
word
order
to disambiguate
sentences,
and Friedman
1976)
has
said
the
same
for ASL,
although
her emphasis
is
on
the
alternatives
to
word
order
and
case
marking
principles
that
are
employed
by
the
American
deaf
in
their
language.
2
This
review
of
literature
on
the distinctiveness
of
sign
language
organization
is
appropriate,
because
PSL
like
ASL
and
other
sign
languages
is
organized
according
to lin-
guistically
extraordinary
principles.
The
deaf
signers
of
Providence
Island
make
no
use
of morphological
affixing
or
word
order,
but
their
utterances
do
follow
a
Topic
Comment
format;
PSL
utterances
are
replete
with
repetition
and
make
ample
use
of
a
panoply
of
non-manual
and
context-dependent
devices
for
utterance disambiguation
(Washabaugh
i.p.
Wash-
abaugh
et al.
1978).
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verb
sign
JAIL,
because
this verb
sign
is one
that
lacks
a
directional
expression
and
it
takes
reversible
agents
and
patients
(Fischer
1975:
16f).
JAIL
is
the
sort
of verb
the
agent and
patient
of
which
could be
confused;
hence
utter-
ances
containing
the
verb
JAIL are good
testing grounds
for
a word-order
principle;
however,
in
no instance
is
there
any evidence
for such a word-order
principle.
Excerpt
(2)
occurred
in a
conversation between CB
from Southwest
Bay, her hearing brother,
who helped with
translations,
and
LA
of Rocky
Point.
Both CB
and LA
had
undergone
surgical operations at one time or another, and
at this
point
in
their
conversation they
began
talking
about
their experiences.
CB volunteered the information
that
her
father
would not allow
her to
undergo another operation.
(All translations are
arrived
at
through
advice from CB s
brother,
through
a
knowledge
of island
affairs,
as
well
as
through
observation of signed utterances.)
(2) (CB) DREAM INJECTION DREAM (LA)
OPERATE
DREAM
(CB)
DREAM LIGHT,
ME
PAPA GO
NO ME JAIL
ME GO
OPERATE NO PAPA JAIL ME LA)
SHE
JAIL OPERATE
NO SHE (CB) JAIL
PAPA
GO
OPERATE
NO (VT
7-8:
113)
The sign JAIL is used
four times
in this excerpt,
each
time
as a verb.
Two
of the four uses seem to
require an intransi-
tive reading (patient,
no agent):
ME JAIL and
HIM
JAIL both
mean
CB
will
be
jailed.'
In
the
phrase
JAIL PAPA,
the first
person patient
has been deleted;
PAPA in
this
utterance must
be
a specified
agent.
Thus,
in
the
first three
uses in this
excerpt, JAIL is preceded
by a
patient
sign
and/or
followed
by an
agent sign.
But
in the fourth use
of JAIL,
PAPA
JAIL
ME,
the
verb JAIL
is
preceded
by an agent
sign,
PAPA,
and followed
by an
index
that
indicates
the
patient.
This
same problematic
order, JAIL
+Patient,
appears
again
later
in
the
same
conversation.
In
(3)
LA
summarizes
CB's
plight, signing
that if
CB were to
fly
to
San Andres
for
an operation,
her
father
would
jail
her.
CB
adds
that
she
cannot
even
send
for
pills.
LA
reiterates
that
CB
cannot
write
for
pills
or
her
father
would
jail
her.
Both
lament
over
the
situation:
(3)
(LA)
SHE
THERE
FLY
GO
JAIL
SHE
OPERATE
PAPA
NO
NO
SHE
OPERATE
WHAT-TO-DO?
SHE
PAIN
(CB)
PILL
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NONE
PILL EAT
PAIN
LA) ME
SHE
TWO
PILL
GO PILL
WRITE
GO
-NO-
NO
JAIL
SHE WHAT-TO-DO?
(CB)
WHAT-TO-DO
DEAD
(VT 7-8:
170)
Here
as
in (2)
the agent,
PAPA,
is
not specified
and
the
patient
(SHE)
follows
the
verb JAIL.
These
two
uses,
and
the
previous
four
uses
of
JAIL
in (2), support
the claim
that
agents
and patients
can
either
precede
or
follow
the verb
JAIL,
or
that
the
grammar
of
PSL tolerates
either
an
S 0
order
or
an
0 S
order.
Close
inspection
of
these
sentences
may raise
sus-
picion
about
this
claim. All
the cases
in
which
the patient
follows
JAIL
seem
to
come
after
the specification
of a set
of
conditions.
In
(2)
there is
ME
GO
OPERATE
NO
PAPA
JAIL ME
('If
she goes
and flies, papa
will
jail
her');
also
PILL GO
PILL
WRITE
GO
NO
JAIL SHE
( CB
may
not go for or
write
for
pills,
else
(papa) will
jail her'). It may
well
be that the
problematic
sign
order JAIL
Patient
signals
a
result of
specified
conditions.
Some support
for this
'result of conditions
hypothesis
is apparent
in (4). Here
BT
of Rocky
Point
is
conversing
with
LA
and
CB
and
myself.
BT tells CB
that everyone in
Providence
is
lazy,
will
not work, drinks, smokes
grass, and steals.
He
adds that he neither drinks nor smokes for
fear
of being jailed.
(4)
(BT) ALL WORK STOP DRINK MONEY STEAL WORK STOP
DO-NOTHING
ALL
MONEY
STEAL
FIGHT
DRINK
ALL
DANCE
(CB) STEAL?
(BT)
ALL STEAL. DRINK
ME
NO
STAY
DRINK NO SMOKE-GRASS
ME
NO
JAIL
ME AFRAID
ME
(VT
8-8: 209)
Here again JAIL
ME
signifies 'they will jail
me and
follows
as the result
of
a
series
of specified
conditions.
As
in pre-
vious
utterances,
the
conditions contain
an N V
order
(i.e.
M
NO),
whereas the
results
are
expressed in
an
inverted
V N
order.
Excerpt
(5) however
raises
problems with
this
hypo-
thesis and
simultaneously
suggests
an alternative
hypothesis
to explain
the JAIL+
Patient
sign
order.
In (5)
LA
describes
the pernicious assault
by three young men
from
Rocky Point
on BT.
A rough
translation
of (5)
would be:
'Three
men
grabbed
him.
One of
them with
a
beard-the
one
whose
big
mother
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24
died
when
the
ship
went
down-was
grabbed
and
jailed.'
(5)
(IA)
MAN
THREE
GRAB HIM
BEARD
ONE
MAN
DEAD
SHIP
SINK
WOMAN
BIG HIM GRAB
JAIL,
HEAR YOU, JAIL HIM (VT 8-8: 139)
The
problem
raised
by (5)
is that
if
JAIL
HIM's
order
is
the result
of
some set
of
specified conditions, then why is
JAIL HIM preceded
immediately
by HIM
GRAB
JAIL?
The
result of conditions hypothesis
cannot
explain this
fact,
but
perhaps
an
afterthought hypothesis
is
more
appropriate.
In another
paper (Washabaugh in
press), I
note
that
at
the end of utterances
in PSL,
noun
signs
are often added
parenthetically
as clarifiers. Occasionally
verbs
are
paired
with these
afterthought
noun
signs, but
when
that
occurs,
the
phrase that results is placed
in
an inverted V
N order.
HEAR
YOU in
(5)
is typical
of such afterthought
phrases.
This
hypothesis might explain
all the
cases
of
JAIL
Patient,
since
in
all situations
the
V
+N
phrases
appear
at
or
near
the end
of an utterance.
But this hypothesis
is scotched
by
evidence from
ut-
terances
(6) and (7).
In (6), CB and
her
niece AB, both of
Southwest
Bay,
are conversing
at the
home of AB.
CB recounts,
with
great
enthusiasm,
a
tale
of horse-meat
sausage. A
rough
and ready translation of this
tale
goes like this: According
to a
telegraph
report,
a young man,
designated
earlier by
the
descriptive
sign
AFRO-HAIR,
was
thrown
in
jail for his
role in
putting horsemeat into
sausage
where
he
worked.
(6) (CB) TELEGRAM COME
TELEGRAM
SAY HORSE EAT
KNOW YOU
SAUSAGE EAT (AB)
HORSE
EAT
SAUSAGE
EAT
HORSE
EAT
(CB)
SAUSAGE EAT RADIO
FAR
GET-
OUT HIM
COME
JAIL
COME
LOOK ABOUT LOOK
SMELL
LOOK ABOUT
EAT SAUSAGE
GATHER
COW
NO
FEEL NO
SMELL NO
COOK
NO
SMELL
EAT STINK
(VT
8-8:
299)
The
parts
of
the
utterance
that
are
significant
for
our
con-
cerns
have
to
do
with
the
signs
EAT
and
SAUSAGE.
Used
twice
by
CB
in
mid-utterance,
the
phrase
is
once
ordered
SAUSAGE
EAT
and
later
EAT
SAUSAGE.
Neither
the
result
of
conditions
hypothesis
nor
the
afterthought'
hypothesis
will
explain
this
variation
in
sign
order.
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Again
in
(7) there
is
an inexplicable
variation
in sign
order.
Here
CB
of
Southwest
Bay
and
LA and BT
of Rocky
Point
are
talking about
BT's
favorite
subject,
work.
LA
in-
dicates
that BT's
old
father
does
not
work,
and
that
BT must
carry
water
down
from the
hills.
CB summarizes
the situation
for
her
brother.
(7)
LA)
PAPA
THERE
NOTHING
CARRY
AWAY HIM
ONE
-NO-
CARRY WATER
THERE
BOTTOM
TO TOP (CB)
WATER
THERE
(BT) PAPA SIT
ME
ONE WATER
THERE
CARRY
THERE
(VT
8-8:
288)
Where
LA
signs
HIM CARRY
WATER
in
mid-utterance, BT
signs ME WATER
CARRY in utterance-final
position.
This
will be a
sufficiently clear
demonstration
that
Verb
Patient
order
is
not explained
by
the position
of the phrase
in the
utterance
nor by
its
semantic
relation
to some
previously
specified
set
of
conditions.
Utterances
(2)
through
(7)
above provide
evidence
from
candidly signed
PSL
that agents
and patients
are not ordered
relative
to
verbs. Moreover,
the
preceding
analysis of
a
corpus
of forty-eight
rather formal utterances
elicited from
eight deaf
persons
has
shown
that agents and
patients
are
not ordered relative to
one another. In general then,
semantic
categories
are not distinguished
by their position in
PSL
utterances.
Given that no
specifically syntactic categories,
which could
be
ordered,
exist
in
PSL,
I
conclude
that
PSL
does
not
make
use of a word-order
principle.
The Topic-C omment
f
ormat. Word
order is not a
principle
employed
by
deaf signers
of PSL. But that
conclusion
should not
be mis-
interpreted to
mean that any
constituents
can
occupy
any
position
in a PSL utterance.
There
seems
to
be a discourse
principle, a
principle
that
has
to do with the
presentation
of
the utterance as a whole rather than
with
the specification
of
relationships
between utterance constituents, which
prin-
ciple inclines
signers
to place
verb
signs in
utterance-final
position (Li
&
Thompson
1976,
Washabaugh
in
press).
Such
a principle advocates, but does not require,
the
specification
of the topic
early
in the utterance.
The topic,
once speci-
fied, is
to be followed by a verbal
comment. Unlike
the
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syntactic
constituent,
Subject,
the
Topic
bears
no
marked
relationship
either
to
the verb sign or
to other noun
signs
in
the
utterance.
Instead
Topic performs
the
discourse
func-
tion
of
setting
a
spatial,
temporal,
or
individual
frame-
work
within which the
main
production
holds
(Li
& Thompson
1976:
464).
Such a
Topic-Comment
organization
is said
to
characterize
utterances
in ASL
(Friedman
1976:
142);
and the
evidence
from both
formal
elicited signing
as
well
as
casual
signing
points to
that same principle
of organization in
vernacular
PSL.
An
analysis
of the above-mentioned
corpus of forty-
eight paired utterances
elicited
from
eight
deaf
signers sug-
gests the presence
of a
Topic-Comment
principle
of utterance
organization. Specifically,
0.70 of the
forty-three codable
utterances
of the corpus
were verb
final utterances.
Where
verbs
are
final, noun signs
appear earlier in the utterance,
and
such
a manner of
utterance organization
is
consistent
with
the
Topic-Comment
discourse
principle.
Candid
PSL
signing corroborates
the claim
that
PSL
signers make
use of a Topic-Comment
principle
to
organize
their
utterances.
Utterances
(8) and
(9) each begin
with a
noun
sign
that has
no apparent
grammatical
role to
play in
the
proposition
that
follows.
Such
double
subject
utter-
ances (Li
& Thompson
1976:
468) are distinctive
earmarks
of
Topic-Comment
utterances.
(8) LONG
AGO COLD FAR PLANE SO-BIG,
NO
SO-BIG,
SO-BIG
MAN
COLD
FAR
STOUT
BLACK
SIDEBURNS ONE
CLEAR
TWO
DRUNK
DRIVE
TUMBLE
CRASH THERE
SAN
ANDRES
(r-19: 4)
'Long ago
from
the states
a
small
plane, two
men from the states,
one with black
sideburns,
the
other
with light skin,
flew while
drunk
and crashed
in
San Andres.'
(9)
SPLIT-LIP
INDEX
SPLIT-LIP,
MOTHER
SPOUSE
GONE
?)
DEAD
3
PILL
EAT
PILL
EAT EAT BELLY
WORK
DAY
ONE TWO
BABY
ABORT
DEAD
F-6:
4)
'About
this cleft-lipped
boy,
his
mother,
now
dead
and
father
gone,
took
pills
and
aborted
her
baby.'
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Repetition.
Besides
this Topic-Comment
organization,
vernacular
PSL
is
characterized
by repeti-
tiousness similar
to that
of
ASL
(see Stokoe
1973: 53).
Either
particular
signs or
combinations of signs
are
frequently
repeated
or
complemented
by additional
expressions.
In
the
corpus of forty-eight paired utterances
elicited
from eight
deaf signers,
forty-four utterances
were codable for repeti-
tiousness,
and
of those
forty-four
utterances
thirty 0.68)
contained signs that were repeated or
complemented
by
additional signs.
The communicative
advantage
to
be gained
from such
repetitiousness might not be immediately apparent. But a
reconsideration
of
(1),
page
199, will
show
that ambiguous
utterances
may
be distinguished
through
such
repetitiousness.
The
utterances
in
(1)
were elicited
with puppet
sequences
that involved
only
an action of
hitting.
The
utterances
that
describe that
hitting
action are
ambiguous,
because
the
signs
for
agent
and
patient
are
not
distinguishable;
however,
by
repetition of the noun
signs and the
addition of the
verb
sign
CRY
with
appropriate
noun
signs,
the signer provides
an
utterance-internal
context
that the
receiver can
use to
dis-
ambiguate
the
utterances.
Thusin
repeated
expressions,
cues
can be
laid down,
which
in the
absence
of other
dis-
ambiguating
devices,
facilitate
a proper interpretation
of
the
utterances.
In
summary,
deaf
signers
on Providence
Island
do not
make
use
of
a
word-order principle but
do
employ
a
Topic-
Comment format
in constructing
utterances, and
they do
em-
ploy
repetition
as one of
the
sorts
of
devices
for
distinguishing
ambiguous utterances.
Hearing
signers
.
The
contrasts
between
the
vernacular
sign
language
and the
spoken
lan-
guage
of
Providence
Island
have been
made
clear in
the
above
discussion.
Given
that
hearing
persons
play
a significant
role in
the
PSL
signing
community,
it is
reasonable
to
wonder
whether
the hearing
really
acquire
this
typologically
distinct
sign
language,
and
how they
acquire
it. Such
questions
about the
acquisition
of
the sign
language
by hearing
persons
are
not
only
reasonable,
they are
theoretically
well advised,
because
the
answers
to
them
will shed
light
on
the central
theoretical
question
of
the
nature
of the
human
virtue
for
language
acquisition.
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I
gathered
data
on the
signing abilities
of the hearing
by using
a formal elicitation
instrument. Thirty-three
hearing
persons
were
asked
to describe
in sign
the actions
in each
of eight sequences
portrayed
by hand
puppets. The hearing
persons
signed descriptions
of
the sequences
they
saw to
other
islanders-in
all but ten instances
to
deaf islanders-
who
had not seen the puppet sequences. The stimulus
sequences
are
described below:
1. Old
man
takes photo of black-bearded man.
2. Black man gives candy
to
black-bearded
man.
3. Black-bearded man takes photo of old
man.
4.
Black-bearded man gives candy
to
black
man.
5. Old man washes
face of
black
man.
6.
Black-bearded man
combs hair of
black man.
7. Black
man
washes face
of
old
man.
8. Black
man
combs hair
of black-bearded
man.
Two
comments on these sequences
are
in
order. First, most
of
the
actions in
these sequences are
such that they would
normally
be signed by verb
signs
that do not have vectoral
or directional qualities (GIVE is an exception) that
might
specify
the semantic relationship
between the noun signs
related to
the verbs. Also
when
such
verbs appear in an
utterance
with two noun
signs,
the
semantic
relationship
between the noun signs is
ambiguous,
since either noun
sign
could
serve
as patient
or
agent.
In
other
words,
nei-
ther sign
formation nor
semantic
context could
clarify
the
meaning
of any utterance
describing
these sequences in
PSL.
Second, the
stimulus
actions above
are
paired
so that
the
agent
in
1.
is the
patient
in
3., etc.
Accordingly
this
elici-
tation
method
sets
up
a
rather tightly
controlled
test
of a
signer's
ability
to
produce
contrasting
utterances.
The
264
utterances
elicited
by
this
procedure
are
predictably
variable.
For
any
particular
stimulus
action
of
the puppets,
some
hearing
signers
produce
curt
three-sign
SVO
utterances;
others
produce
repetitious,
verb-final
utterances.
The
proximate
objective
of
the
following
analysis
will
be
to
discover
a
patterning
in
this
variation,
with
the
expectation
that
such
a
pattern
will
provide
clues
about
the
process
of
sign
acquisition
by
hearing
persons.
Patterns
of
variation
can
be
discovered
by
distinguish-
ing
groups
of
hearing
signers
and
by
discovering
a
correlation
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between
such
groups
and a
type of
signing
variation.
Hearing
signers
may
be grouped
according
to any
number
of
factors,
age, sex,
residence,
etc.;
and
there is
ample
sociolin-
guistic
documentation
for
the
correlation
of such
factors
with
spoken
language
variation.
So it
is likely
that
e.g.
age, sex,
and residence
are
factors
that
contribute
to the
variability
in
the
corpus
of
264
utterances.
However,
I
will
sidestep
these
factors and
concentrate
on
one factor
that is
likely to be
indicative of
differential
success in
the
acquisition of the target
language. The
term
for
this
factor
is
distance.
Schumann
1978: 76)
argues that
language
acquisition
in
general will be stalled if
the learner is socially
and/or
psychologically
distant
from
the speakers
of
the
target
lan-
guage.
Distance itself is a
product
of political and
social inequality, of lack of social cohesiveness, of
the
absence
of
residential
contiguity, and of unfavorable
atti-
tudes
of
the
groups toward
each
other
(ibid.:
77).
In
sum,
distance
subsumes
a complex
of factors that inhibit real
communication
between the language
learner and the
users
of the target language (ibid.: 107).
In the
Providence
Island
community,
where
the deaf
are
the users
of
the target language, hearing
acquaintances
of
the
deaf
are
socially
and psychologically
more
distant
from
the
deaf
than
are the hearing
members of households
containing
deaf
persons.
The hearing
acquaintances
of
the
deaf
should therefore
be
less
advanced in
their
acquisition
of
the sign
language
than
the
hearing
members
of
deaf
house-
holds.
Accordingly,
these
two
groups
of
language
learners
should
vary
in
their
signing competence.
The
hearing
acquain-
tances
of
the deaf
should
show
that
they
have
acquired
fewer
of
the distinguishing
features
of vernacular
PSL than
do
the
hearing
members of
deaf
households.
To
test
this
hypothesis
I examined
the
patterns
of
vari-
ation
between
the
utterances
of these
two groups
with
regard
to
the
placement
of verb
signs
and
the
repetition
of
signs.
According
to
the
hypothesis
one
would
predict
that
the
char-
acteristics
of
vernacular
PSL
would
be
more
clearly
apparent
in
the
signing
of
hearing
members
of
deaf
households
than in
the
signing
of
hearing
acquaintances
of
deaf
persons.
Tables
1
and
2
show
that
the
prediction
is
supported
by
the
evidence.
Hearing
members
of deaf
households
employ
verb-final
utter-
ances
in
0.53
instances
as
contrasted
with
0.29
for
the
hearing
acquaintances
of
deaf
persons.
Also
hearing
members
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of deaf households
repeated
at
least
one element
in 0.44 of
their
utterances as
contrasted
to 0.14
repetitions
in the
signed utterances
of
hearing acquaintances.
While these frequencies
are
clear enough
to
demon-
strate
a
tendency
in
the variation,
they become even
stronger
if we adjust the membership
in
the two
groups
according to
the sociolinguistic description
made
earlier. Specifically,
we noted
that
some hearing
members of
deaf households may
be
too
young
to
enter
into
real
communication with
the
deaf
members
of
their
own
households.
Such
may
be the
case for hearing signer 15,
who
is the young niece of a
mature deaf
man.
It
is
important
to
note that signer
15
uses
verb-final
utterance
pattern and repeats
formatives
only
0.25
of
the
time.
It is
likely that signer 15
has
had
no
greater
contact
with deaf
signers than
have
many hearing
acquaintances of deaf
persons,
and
so she should
be re-
classified
as a
hearing acquaintance. On
the other
hand,
certain
hearing neighbors
of
the
deaf
have
befriended
deaf
persons who live alone
or with only
deaf companions.
In
the
process those
hearing neighbors seem
to
have
acquired
an
advanced competence in
signing. Signers 18 and
#29
are
twq
such persons,
and
their high
frequencies
of
verb-
final
utterances and
repetition
give witness
to
that fact.
These
two
signers
have as
much contact
with deaf
signers
as do
many hearing members
of deaf households and so
should
be reclassified.
These
adjustments
in the groups
strengthen
the
corre-
lation between
competence
in signing
and
distance
as
measured by
household
membership-both
correlations
are
significant beyond a 0.001 level of probability.
4
With the
group
membership
adjusted,
hearing members
of deaf
households
employ
verb-final
utterances
0. 64 of the
time
compared
to 0.23
for the
hearing
acquaintances
of deaf
persons.
And
they repeated formatives
0.43
of the time
compared
to
0.13
of
the
time
for the
hearing
acquaintances.
The
signing
of the
hearing
members
of
deaf house-
holds
with
its
rather
high
frequency
of
verb-final
utterances
and
with
its
repetitiousness
is
like
the
vernacular
signing
of
the
deaf.
But
that
is not
to
say
that
hearing
members
of
deaf
households
have
acquired
all other
characteristics
of
vernacular
PSL
to
an
equally
advanced
degree.
When
word
order
is
considered,
the
picture
becomes
a
good
deal
more
complicated.
8/19/2019 24.Washabaugh Hearing and Deaf Signers Providence Island
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Hearing
Members
of Deaf Households
Signer
Frequency
Hearing Acquaintances
of the
Deaf
Signer
Frequency
Hearing
Members
of
Deaf Households
Signer
Frequency
Hearing Acquaintances
of the Deaf
Signer
Frequency
25
1/8
26
1/7
27 0/7
28
0/8
29
3/8
30
3/8
32
2/8
33 1/8
Table
1 .
Frequencies
of
Verb-Final
format
in utterances
of two
groups
of
hearing
signers.
Table 2
Frequencies of
Sign
repe-
tition in
utterances
of two
groups
of hearing
signers.
8/19/2019 24.Washabaugh Hearing and Deaf Signers Providence Island
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Sign
Language
Studies
24
The deaf signers
of Providence
Island
do not
make use
of a word-order
principle.
This observation
is
based on the
observations
already
made on the
frequency of
orderings
of
agents
and patients
in
a
corpus
of utterances
by deaf
signers.
That
frequency, 0.57,
was only slightly
above chance. If
this
same
measure is applied to
the corpus of utterances
produced by
hearing signers,
it is
found that as
a
group,
the
thirty-three
hearing
signers placed
agent signs before
patient signs in
0.99
of their utterances. Nor
is there
any
difference in this
frequency between
the signing of hearing
acquaintances
and members
of deaf households. Both
groups
placed
agents before
patients in 0.98
of their utterances.
Thus the
corpus of utterances elicited
from hearing
signers
provides
clear and unmistakable
support
for an
observation
that
the
hearing signers-all
the hearing signers-of
Provi-
dence
Island make use
of a
word-order
principle in the organ-
ization of
their
utterances,
despite
the fact
that the deaf
signers do not.
Conclusion.
The
foregoing
observations
can
be
used
to
identify
certain stages in the acqui-
sition of
PSL
by hearing
signers.
First,
the utterances
of the
hearing acquaintances of the deaf suggest that the
early
stages of sign language
acquisition involve replacement
of
constituents
of spoken
language
by
signs
of
PSL. The rhe-
torical
structure
of
the spoken
language
utterances
is kept
by
these signers:
verbs
are
placed
in
the
middle of
their
utterances,
and
the
succinctness
of
spoken
language
utter-
ances
is maintained.
As
acquisition
advances,
the
complex
and
general
features
of
PSL utterance
organization
are
acquired:
the
hearing
signers
acquire
a verb-final
format
and
the
characteristic
repetitiousness
of vernacular
PSL.
But
word
order,
a
most
basic
feature
of the
spoken
language
structure,
seems
to
be
least
available
for
replacement
by a
sign
language
organizing
principle
in
the
process
of
sign
language
acquisition.
It
is possible that
once
the hearing have
acquired
in
their
first
language
a
word-order
principle-or
perhaps
any
sort
of
general
autonomous
syntactic
principle;
they
cannot
dispense
with
that
principle,
regardless
of
the
nature
of
the
target
language
to
be
acquired.
In
the
specific
case
of
PSL,
the
hearing
signers
seem
unable
to
dispense
with
the
word
order
of
spoken
language
and
replace
it
with
the
ensemble
of
context-dependent
syntactic
devices
that
disambiguate
the
8/19/2019 24.Washabaugh Hearing and Deaf Signers Providence Island
22/25
sh b ugh
utterances
of
vernacular
PSL.
It
is
as
if
autonomous
syntactic
principles
like
word
order
and
context-dependent
syntactic
devices,
such
as
those
in
PSL,
constitute
distinctive
roads
that
can
be
taken
in
language
acquisition.
These
roads
may
be
so
fundamentally
distinctive
that
having
selected
the
road
of
autonomous
syntax,
human
beings
cannot
go
back
and
recover
the
road
not taken.
NOTES
1
The
data
in
this
paper
were
gathered
during
the
spring
of
1977
and
summer
of
1978.
The
fieldwork
was
suppor-
ted
by
the National
Science
Foundation
(Grant
BNS
76-
80056).
I
am
grateful
to
the
Center
for
Latin
America,
Uni-
versity
of
Wisconsin,
Milwaukee,
for
ancillary
funds
for
research
assistance
and
for
travel
to present
an
earlier
version
of
this
paper
at
the
Linguistic Society
of America
Conference
in
Boston,
1978.
I am
grateful
to
Donnie
Dean
and Lynne
Goldstein
for
their
technical
assistance,
to
William
Stokoe
for
his
comments
and
criticism,
and
to
Cathy
Washabaugh
for
her assistance
in
gathering
data
and
editing
the
final
manuscript.
Mostly
I
am
grateful
to
the
people of Providence
Island
for
their
hospitality
and
generosity.
2
These
descriptions
have
revealed
some of
the
distin-
guishing
features
of vernacular
sign languages.
But
in
so doing
they have
uncovered
a problem
that should
be
mentioned.
If
sentence organization
in
sign languages
is
founded
on principles that
are
distinct
from those underlying
sentence organization
in spoken languages,
then
it will be
necessary
to
redefine
the
notion
of
sentence in sign
language
(see Baker & Padden 1978:
35). More
specifically, if princi-
ples
other
than
case
marking and
word order are
used to
or-
ganize
constituents
in a signed sentence, then the
boundaries
of such signed
sentences
cannot even be set
until the complete
set
of
such principles is made
explicit.
Lacking
an
explan-
ation of
the principles
that relate constituents,
one could not
determine where one
sentential unit
in
a discourse
ends and
where another begins. A number of sign
linguists
are
working
at the task
of
identifying the syntactic principles
employed in
vernacular sign
languages
and also at identifying extra-linguistic
8/19/2019 24.Washabaugh Hearing and Deaf Signers Providence Island
23/25
Sign
Language
Studies
24
cues
that might
help to
define
sentential
units
(Covington
1973,
Baker & Padden 1978,
Grosjean & Lane 1977,
Liddell
1978), but
at this
point no
one has
claimed to
have
discovered
a set of
features that can segment
signed utterances into
signed
sentences unequivocally.
Until
such
time as
defini-
tive syntactic principles
or cues
are
described,
sign
linguists
must
continue
to
use gross features
to
isolate sentential
units
(e.g.
the
return
of hands
to rest position;
Stokoe 1973:
5) or
continue
to deal with syntax in
such a
way that the
question
of sentence
boundaries will
not
be
raised.
I have tried
in
this paper
to
describe
some
of the features
of
PSL syntactic
organization without assuming
more
than
a
rough
knowledge
of PSL sentence
boundaries.
Accordingly, I will
refer
in
this
paper to the
characteristics
of PSL utterances rather
than of
PSL sentences.
3
The
interlinear
elements
in
utterances
(3), (7),
and (9)
are
glosses
for
non-manual
expressions that
co-occurred
with
the
manual
sign glossed
directly
above.
4
A t-test was
used
to
measure
the variance
of sign
charac-
teristics
between
the two groups.
The
results are
as
follows:
For the
variance
in
verb finality
between
nine
hearing
members
of
deaf
families
and
24
hearing
acquaintances
of
deaf
persons,
t
= -4.4824,
with
a
significance
exceeding
0.001;
for the
variance
in
repetitiousness
between
nine
hearing
members
of
deaf families
and
24
hearing
acquaintances
of
deaf
persons,
t
= -4.1890,with
a
significance
exceeding
0.003.
The
dependent
variable
data
consist
of
ratios
of actual
occurrences
(of
verb-final
format
or
of
repetition)
to
possible
occurrences.
An
abnormal
distribution
of
those
ratios
within
samples
could
not
be
verified
by
tests
for
skewness
and
kurtosis.
REFERENCES
Baker,
Charlotte,
&
Carol
Padden
1978
Focusing
on
the
Non-Manual
Components
of
American
Sign
Language,
in
Understanding
Lan-
guage
through
Sign
Language
Research,
Siple
ed.
(New
York,
Academic
Press),
pp.
27-58.
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Washabaugh
213
Bellugi,
Ursula,
&
Susan
Fischer
1972
A
Comparison
of
Sign
Language
and
Spoken
Lan-
guage,
Cognition,
1,
173-200.
Covington,
Virginia
1973
Juncture
in
American
Sign
Language,
Sign
Language
Studies
2,
29-38.
Fischer,
Susan
1975
Influences
on
Word
Order
Change
in
American
Sign
Language,
in Word
Order
&
Word
Order
Change,
C.N.Li
ed.
(Austin,
Univ.
of
Texas
Press),
pp.
3-20.
Friedman,
Lynn
1976
The
Manifestation
of
Subject
and
Topic
in
American
Sign
Language,
in
Subject
&
Topic,
C.N.Li
ed.
(New
York,
Academic
Press),
pp.
127-148.
ed.
1977
On
the
Other
Hand
(New
York,
Academic
Press).
Grosjean,
Francois,
&
Harlan
Lane
1977
Pauses
and
Syntax
in American
Sign
Language,
Cognition
5,
101-117.
Li,
Charles,
& Sandra
Thompson
1976
Subject
&
Topic:
A New
Typology
of
Language,
in
Subject
&
Topic,
Li
ed. (NY,
Academic
Pr.), 457-489.
Liddell,
Scott
1978
Non-Manual
Signs and
Relative
Clauses in
Ameri-
can
Sign Language,
in
Understanding
Language
through
Sign Language
Research,
Siple
ed.
(New
York,
Academic
Press), pp.
59-90.
Schein,
Jerome
D.
1968
The
Deaf
Community
(Washington,
DC,
Gallaudet
College
Press).
Schlesinger,
I.
M.
1970
The
Grammar
of
Sign
Language
& the
Problem
of
Language
Universals,
in
Biological
&
Social
Factors
in Psycholinguistics,
Morton
ed.
(Urbana,
University
of
Illinois
Press), pp. 98-121.
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Sign
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Schumann,
John
1978 The Pidginization
Process:
A Model
for Second
Language
Acquisition
(Rowley,
MA,
Newbury House).
Stokoe, William
1973
Sign
Syntax
and Human Language
Capacity, Florida
Foreign
Language
Reporter,
Spring/Fall,
pp. 3-6
&
52-53.
1976 Sign
Language
Autonomy, in
Origins
& Evolution
of
Language
&
Speech,
Harnad
&
Steklis
eds.
(New
York, NY Academy
of Sciences),
pp. 505-513.
Washabaugh,
William
in
pr The Manu-Facturing
of a
Language,
Semiotica.
- - -
- -, James
Woodward,
&
Susan
DeSantis
1978 Providence Island Sign Language: A Context-De-
pendent Language, Anthropological Linguistics
20 3),
95-109.
Woodward, James
1978a Attitudes toward
Deaf
People on
Providence
Island:
A
Preliminary Study,
Sign
Language
Studies
18, 40-68.
1978b
Attitudes
toward
Providence Island
Sign
Language.
Unpublished
MS,
Gallaudet College,
Washington, DC.
-
-
-
-
-,
S. DeSantis,
&
William
Washabaugh
in
pr
Getting
Back
to
Nature:
Unhomogenized
Linguistic
Analysis,
Selected
Papers of the
1975-1976
NWAVE
Conferences
(Washington,
DC,
Georgetown
U.
Pr.).
William
Washabaugh
is
an
Assistant
Professor
in the
anthro-
pology
department
of
the
University
of
Wisconsin,
Milwaukee.
His
master's
degree
is
from
the
University
of
Connecticut
1970)
and
his Ph.D.
from
Wayne
State
University
1974).
His
studies
of
Latin
Americans
have
taken
him
both to the
Caribbean
and to
the
urban
and
rural
settings
to
which
they
emigrate.
His
research
interest
is
focused
on
culture
and
language
in
changing
societies.