从好奇到合作--比利时手语的语言学探索

IF 0.5 Q3 LINGUISTICS
Filip Loncke
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However, that same year, 1960, saw the publication of an initially hardly noticed booklet \"Sign Language Structure\" by Stokoe. And the 1960s was also the decade in which linguists adopted theories and views that suggested that the acquisition of a language might rely on an inborn biological tendency shared by all humans. Interest in sign language and sign language research emerged as a natural byproduct.</p> <p>Of course, I didn't know any of that when I started my first job in 1973. I had graduated with a bachelor's degree in educational <strong>[End Page 344]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 1. <p>Bernard Tervoort. Photo courtesy of lingoblog.dk.</p> <p></p> <p>psychology from the University of Ghent in Belgium. I was hired to work as a coordinator of teaching and other educational staff in a school for children and adolescents with special needs, including about one hundred deaf students between six and sixteen years old. On my first day, the director of the school was going to give me a tour and explain how things were organized. When I arrived at his office to start the tour, I found him in a (in my eyes, very fluent) signing conversation with one of the deaf students. Once we started our tour, he explained the pedagogy that was followed in the school, including a statement that sign language was not used because it interfered with the educational goals, the ability to speak being a primary one.</p> <p>This all felt very confusing to me. I did not know anything about deafness or deaf education, let alone of the existence of a deaf <strong>[End Page 345]</strong> community. I started to ask and read left and right and was, at the same time, amazed to find almost entirely disconnected circuits of thinking with, on the one hand, a growing fascination of language in the visual modality and, on the other hand, a total lack of interest or curiosity on how these new findings should be urging a rethinking of old ideas and educational practices.</p> <p>Was sign language a language or not, and if it was, what does this mean? I listened to what educators told me and what I could find in the literature, which was initially not too much.</p> <p>I found Tervoort's 1953 doctoral dissertation in the school's library—it consisted of two volumes in Dutch, which would be reedited and translated into English in 1975 as <em>Developmental Features of Visual Communication. A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Deaf Children's Growth in Communicative Competence</em>. 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Sign language research and linguistics are important: it was worth pursuing this a bit more.</p> <p>In the meantime, while I was at my job, I started a master's program in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics at the University of Brussels. 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引用次数: 0

摘要

以下是内容的简要摘录,以代替摘要: 从好奇到合作--比利时手语的语言学探索 Filip Loncke(简历 1973 年,阿姆斯特丹大学的 Bernard Tervoort 在《符号学》杂志上发表了一篇文章,题目是 "会有人类手语吗?特尔沃尔特在这篇文章中提出的问题必须从理论和近乎哲学的讨论角度来看待。就在十年前的 1960 年,查尔斯-霍克特(Charles Hockett),一位颇具影响力、广受尊敬的语言学家,指出使用声-听通道是语言最明显的设计特征。然而,就在同一年,即 1960 年,斯托克出版了一本小册子《手语结构》,这本小册子最初几乎没有引起人们的注意。20 世纪 60 年代也是语言学家采纳了一些理论和观点的年代,这些理论和观点认为,语言的习得可能依赖于全人类共有的先天生物倾向。对手语和手语研究的兴趣自然而然地成为副产品。当然,1973 年我开始第一份工作时并不知道这些。我已经获得了教育学学士学位 [页尾 344] 点击放大 查看完整分辨率 图 1.Bernard Tervoort。图片来源:lingoblog.dk. 比利时根特大学心理学。我受聘在一所为有特殊需要的儿童和青少年开设的学校里担任教学和其他教育人员的协调员,这所学校里有大约一百名六到十六岁的聋哑学生。第一天,学校校长要带我参观学校,并向我介绍学校的组织结构。当我来到他的办公室准备开始参观时,我发现他正在和一名聋哑学生进行手语对话(在我眼里,非常流利)。我们开始参观后,他向我解释了学校的教学方法,包括不使用手语的原因,因为手语会影响教育目标,而说话能力是首要目标。这一切让我感到非常困惑。我对耳聋和聋人教育一无所知,更不知道聋人 [第 345 页结束] 社区的存在。我开始左问右读,同时惊奇地发现,一方面,人们对视觉语言越来越着迷,另一方面,对这些新发现如何促使人们重新思考旧的观念和教育实践,却几乎完全脱节。手语到底是不是一种语言?我听取了教育工作者的意见,也从文献中找到了一些东西,但起初并不多。我在学校图书馆找到了特尔沃尔特 1953 年的博士论文--它包括两卷荷兰文,1975 年被重新编辑并翻译成英文,名为《视觉交流的发展特征》。聋哑儿童交际能力成长的心理语言学分析》(A Psychcholinguistic Analysis of Deaf Children's Growth in Communicative Competence)。有趣的是,特尔沃尔特没有把他在聋哑学校观察到的交流描述为手语,而是使用了更谨慎的术语 "深奥的交流"(esoteric communication)。在我看来,当时选择这个词可能表明他对这种交流形式的语言地位并不确定。不过,这项研究最后呼吁人们认真对待这种观察到的交流,承认它的价值,并含蓄地承认它在教育环境中的作用。1975 年,我的一位叔叔(我只在十岁时见过他一次),一位华盛顿大学的汉学家,突然寄给我一份南希-弗里什伯格 1974 年发表在《语言》上的关于 ASL 历史变迁的文章影印件。显然,如果像《语言》这样的权威期刊发表手语研究文章,人们就会注意到。手语研究和语言学都很重要:值得进一步研究。同时,在工作期间,我开始了布鲁塞尔大学的心理语言学和神经语言学硕士课程。I...
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
From Curiosity to Collaboration—Linguistic Explorations of Sign Language in Belgium
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • From Curiosity to Collaboration—Linguistic Explorations of Sign Language in Belgium
  • Filip Loncke (bio)

In 1973, Bernard Tervoort of the University of Amsterdam published an article in the journal Semiotica with the title "Could There Be a Human Sign Language?" The question that Tervoort had asked in this article must be seen against a theoretical and almost philosophical discussion. Only a decade earlier, in 1960, Charles Hockett, an influential and widely respected linguist, had pointed to the use of the vocal-auditory channel as the most obviously defining design feature of what languages are. However, that same year, 1960, saw the publication of an initially hardly noticed booklet "Sign Language Structure" by Stokoe. And the 1960s was also the decade in which linguists adopted theories and views that suggested that the acquisition of a language might rely on an inborn biological tendency shared by all humans. Interest in sign language and sign language research emerged as a natural byproduct.

Of course, I didn't know any of that when I started my first job in 1973. I had graduated with a bachelor's degree in educational [End Page 344]


Click for larger view
View full resolution Figure 1.

Bernard Tervoort. Photo courtesy of lingoblog.dk.

psychology from the University of Ghent in Belgium. I was hired to work as a coordinator of teaching and other educational staff in a school for children and adolescents with special needs, including about one hundred deaf students between six and sixteen years old. On my first day, the director of the school was going to give me a tour and explain how things were organized. When I arrived at his office to start the tour, I found him in a (in my eyes, very fluent) signing conversation with one of the deaf students. Once we started our tour, he explained the pedagogy that was followed in the school, including a statement that sign language was not used because it interfered with the educational goals, the ability to speak being a primary one.

This all felt very confusing to me. I did not know anything about deafness or deaf education, let alone of the existence of a deaf [End Page 345] community. I started to ask and read left and right and was, at the same time, amazed to find almost entirely disconnected circuits of thinking with, on the one hand, a growing fascination of language in the visual modality and, on the other hand, a total lack of interest or curiosity on how these new findings should be urging a rethinking of old ideas and educational practices.

Was sign language a language or not, and if it was, what does this mean? I listened to what educators told me and what I could find in the literature, which was initially not too much.

I found Tervoort's 1953 doctoral dissertation in the school's library—it consisted of two volumes in Dutch, which would be reedited and translated into English in 1975 as Developmental Features of Visual Communication. A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Deaf Children's Growth in Communicative Competence. Interestingly, Tervoort shied away from describing the communication he had observed in schools for the deaf as sign language but used the more prudent term esoteric communication. It appears to me that the choice of that term at that moment might be indicative of his uncertainty of the linguistic status of this form of communication. However, the study ends with an appeal to take this observed communication seriously and to recognize its value and, implicitly, its usefulness in educational settings.

Out of the blue, in 1975, an uncle of mine (whom I had only met once when I was ten), a sinologist at the University of Washington, sent me a photocopy of Nancy Frishberg's 1974 article on historical changes in ASL, which had been published in Language. Clearly, if a prestigious journal such as Language publishes sign language research articles, one takes notice. Sign language research and linguistics are important: it was worth pursuing this a bit more.

In the meantime, while I was at my job, I started a master's program in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics at the University of Brussels. I...

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来源期刊
Sign Language Studies
Sign Language Studies LINGUISTICS-
CiteScore
1.80
自引率
6.70%
发文量
11
期刊介绍: Sign Language Studies publishes a wide range of original scholarly articles and essays relevant to signed languages and signing communities. The journal provides a forum for the dissemination of important ideas and opinions concerning these languages and the communities who use them. Topics of interest include linguistics, anthropology, semiotics, Deaf culture, and Deaf history and literature.
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