Confederacy of a Dunce - Signing and mis-signing

Thursday, February 02, 2006

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One of the most challenging aspects of my new post is that I must get up to speed with British Sign Language (BSL). Many years ago I did take a class in American Sign Language¹, but as many people are very surprised to learn, knowledge of one sign language does not automatically bring with it knowledge of any other. Even the fingerspelled alphabets are completely different, despite the fact that the letters themselves are exactly the same (I am ignoring the difference between "zee" and "zed", and the even more subtle difference between "aitch" and "haitch"). Fortunately, I have many colleagues at the same early stage of BSL, and a weekly course is being offered in house. So far we've covered the rough basics (fingerspelling and numbers; getting someone's attention; introductions and basic getting-to-know-you topics; London locations and transport options; how viciously cold it is outside and what kind of crazy idiot is wearing short sleeves on a day like this. Erm, maybe that last one was just a conversation rather than a lesson. But I wasn't cold!). Once the research centre opens its doors (moving-in day is next Tuesday), there will be a lot more opportunity (read that as a positive spin on "necessity") to converse in sign language as there are quite a few fluent signers around, and all the non-signers are required to achieve a certain level of competence relatively quickly. For now, however, a "BSL Lunch Club" has been set up: a good number of "real" signers join us newbies for lunch and conversation. At the moment there's a substantial gap between the groups; mainly because we're mostly limited to Tarzan-sign ("Me name Dunce me work in 'ology' learn-learn sign language hard ok thank-you?") as soon as the conversation turns away from our constrained practice exchanges. But it's an excellent way to get a good sense of the mechanics of BSL conversations, to get used to following conversations & understand how turn-taking and interruption work, and also to learn a lot of vocabulary under battlefield conditions. OK maybe not "battlefield conditions" but definitely mentally-taxing conditions -- I found the Lunch Club much more difficult than the class itself. But it's all being quite useful at helping me to absorb the course content.

¹I have to admit my shameful sign language past here. I took a short ASL course when I was in 8th grade (or thereabouts), as part of "Project KEY" ("Kokomo Enrichment of Youth", i.e. the school system's gifted and talented program). Not long thereafter, our church was putting on a children's musical, by the name of Papa John's Garden (a musical that occasionally provides the soundtrack to my nightmares even decades later). And someone got the idea that the musical would be particularly enhanced if sign language interpretation were provided. Since I had learned sign language, I was the natural choice. I don't remember exactly, but I think I was asked if I could do it. At that age, the only answer I could possibly give was "of course I can"; because to say otherwise would have been an admission of ignorance.
I went and met with the instructors of my course, who gave me some good starting advice about sign language interpretation in such circumstances. They advised me first, that at the beginning of the musical I should introduce the names of the main characters, fingerspelling them first and then providing a corresponding sign name (i.e. a short sign that refers to a character; think of it as a nickname) so that I wouldn't need to spell each name every time it occurred. And second (but more importantly), to practice, practice and practice on the lines and lyrics. Of course I didn't, although I may have pretended to do so (sitting stage right during rehearsals, daydreaming but with my fingers vaguely fluttering so it would look like I was concentrating on the signs).
And then the day arrived: SHOWTIME (actually, SHOWTIMES: I'm pretty sure there were multiple performances). And was I prepared? Definitely not. I hadn't really thought of sign names for any of the characters (except for "PJ", abbreviation for "Papa John", [the only adult character in the musical, and a character who maybe you don't really want your children to be around]). I didn't know the signs for most of the words in the musical; in fact, I didn't know most of the words. I thought maybe I would come down with a devastating illness of some kind, but I'd used up all my devastating illnesses already to stay home from school on various occasions. So then the curtain went up. Well, there was no curtain, but there I was standing stage right, with a spotlight shining on me. And they were off, singing and talking and all that. And I was keeping up, with an impressive flurry of sign language interpretation! Or at least, I was moving my hands along with the music, making sure they were formed in legitimate ASL handshapes most of the time. After one of the performances, someone came up to me and thanked me for my interpretation. She said that she knew a little sign language (and with that my heart sank)... but not enough to keep up most of the time. Hooray! With that, my secret was safe, and I avoided punishment for making a mockery of sign language. Thank goodness there were no Deaf people in the audience; it would have been a serious insult.

language

Thursday, February 02, 2006 5:59:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)