4.1 How does BSL differ?

Sign languages across the world are thought to be very picturesque: beautifully projected by shapes formed by the hands. Every element of that sign, the handshape, movement and location of that sign is a unique linguistic feature: not one that the spoken language can easily replicate.

As part of Deaf Awareness Week in 2019, The Open University Students Association created a series of video tutorials to introduce British Sign Language [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . If you’d like to see how to sign basic words and phrases then this is a useful resource to get you started.

Joshua Page and Joshua Sprules have a conversation in BSL
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

The linguistics are so very different to English: ranging from the different types of timelines and the listing items to the all-important placement, down to the Non Manual Features(NMFs)/facial expressions.

With the linguistics of English, each word is broken down into morphemes and phonemes. The base word, which changes mood depending on which suffix or prefix is added. Don’t forget the awful confusion of verbs: are they irregular verbs, the past, present, future discombobulation of the tenses along with the who’s who pronouns.

With such an array of language differences, is it unsurprising that deaf people struggle with English.

4 British Sign Language (BSL): an introduction

4.2 English word order