Community Placemaking in Maritime Sign Language

Abstract

Abstract:Maritime Sign Language (MSL) is a Canadian, minority sign language that originally stems from British Sign Language (BSL). Currently used by elderly Deaf people in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland (and Labrador), it is a moribund language, having undergone language shift to American Sign Language (ASL). MSL is still in use by a regional Deaf community and its use characterizes individuals as a group within the local Deaf community. It serves an important role in members' self and group identity. This research examines the ways in which multilingual MSL users currently practice community placemaking, asserting their identity as MSL users, in spite of language shift. It studies the ways that members of the MSL community actively disseminate knowledge about MSL in order to contribute to its maintenance and preservation. They are establishing a collective memory of their language, its users, and their community. This collaborative and group-driven effort strengthens the MSL community and the connections to the local Deaf, ASL-using community and the non-Deaf community, capitalizing on the assets that the MSL community offers to the region and to society.This article examines the ways in which Maritime Sign Language (MSL) users on Canada's east coast, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador are engaged in processes of community placemaking. This multilingual group of people function in MSL, American Sign Language (ASL) and English, as deemed necessary by the circumstances, the context and their interlocutors. Today many MSL users, despite MSL being their L1, use mainly ASL to communicate with other Deaf people.