Quantitative and qualitative aspects of switching between Estonian Sign Language and spoken Estonian

Kadri Hein

Abstract


The central research question of the present paper is ‘What variables influence switching (code-switching and code-blending) between Estonian Sign Language and spoken Estonian among bimodal bilinguals in a school environment?’ The data from guided discussions involving deaf and hearing students indicated that bimodal bilinguals predominantly code-blend, i.e. simultaneously produce speech and signs. The main function of switching among the students was to emphasise a constituent in a clause, but they also switched to express themselves in an original way. In some utterances, it proved difficult to apply a single function to a switch, thus a sequential turn-by-turn analysis was employed. A deaf student’s level of switching was influenced most by the hearing status of the interlocutor, and the amount of switching by the interlocutor.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/ERYa9.03


Keywords


sociolinguistics, bimodal bilingualism, code-switching, code-blending, Estonian Sign Language

Full Text:

PDF

References


Auer, Peter 1984. Bilingual Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Auer, Peter 1995. The pragmatics of code-switching: A sequential approach. – Lesley Milroy, Pieter Muysken (Eds.). One Speaker, Two Languages: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on Code-Switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 115–135.

Austin, John Langshaw 1962. How to do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Backus, Albert Marie; Verschik, Anna 2012. Copiability of (bound) morphology. – Lars Johanson, Martine Robbeets (Eds.). Copies versus Cognates in Bound Morphology. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 123–149.

Bishop, Michele; Hicks, Sherry 2005. Orange eyes: Bimodal bilingualism in hearing adults from deaf families. – Sign Language Studies, 5 (2), 188–230.

Emmorey, Karen; Borinstein, Helsa B.; Thompson, Robin; Gollan, Tamar H. 2008. Bimodal bilingualism. – Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11 (1), 43–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728907003203

Grosjean, François 1996. Living with two languages and two cultures. – Ila Parasnis (Ed.). Cultural and Language Diversity and the Deaf Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 20–37.

Hein, Kadri 2012. Switching between Estonian Sign Language and Spoken Estonian: Functions and Factors Affecting Language Use among Deaf and Hearing Bimodal Bilinguals. Saarbrücken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.

Hollman, Liivi 2010. Basic Color Terms in Estonian Sign Language. Dissertationes linguisticae Universitatis Tartuensis 14. Tartu: Tartu University Press.

Kuntze, Marlon 2000. Codeswitching in ASL and written English language contact. – Karen Emmorey, Harlan Lane (Eds.). The Signs of Language Revisited. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erblaum Associates Publishers, 287–302.

Laiapea, Vahur 1992. Mis on viipekeel. [What is Sign Language]. – Akadeemia, 4, 2098–2136.

Laiapea, Vahur 2007. Keel on lahti. Tähendusi viipekeelest. [Notes on Sign Language.] Töid antropoloogilise ja etnolingvistika vallast 1. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.

Language Archiving Technology. ELAN. Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics. http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan (01.01.2012).

Li Wei 2002. ‘What do You Want Me to Say?’ On the conversation analysis approach to bilingual interaction. – Language in Society, 31 (2), 159–180. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404501020140

McClure, Erica 1981. Formal and functional aspects of the codeswitched discourse of bilingual children. – Richard P. Duran (Ed.). Latino Language and Communicative Behavior. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 69–94.

Miljan, Merilin 2001. Adjectival modification in Estonian and Estonian Sign Language. – Mati Erelt (Ed.). Estonian Typological Studies V. Publications of the Department of Estonian of the University of Tartu 18. Tartu: University of Tartu, 169–188.

Miljan, Merilin 2003. Number in Estonian Sign Language. – Trames, 7 (3), 293–223.

Muysken, Pieter 2004. Two linguistic systems in contact. – Tei K. Bhatia, William C. Ritchie (Eds.). The Handbook of Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell, 147–168.

Myers-Scotton, Carol 1997. Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching. Second edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Paabo, Regina 2010. Viibelda on mõnus. Käsiraamat eesti viipekeele õppimiseks. [Signing is Pleasant. A Handbook for Learning Estonian Sign Language]. Töid antropoloogilise ja etnolingvistika vallast 3. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.

Sandler, Wendy; Diane Lillo-Martin 2006. Sign Language and Linguistic Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Searle, John Rogers 1976. A classification of illocutionary acts. – Language in Society, 5 (1), 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500006837

State Gazette 2007. Language Act. https://www.riigiteataja.ee/ert/act.jsp?id = 12796913 (11.02.2013).

Sutrop, Urmas 2005. Estonian Sign Language. – Raymond Jr. Gordon (Ed.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Taniroo, Liisi 2007. Eesti viibete võrdlus vene viibetega Swadesh 200 nimekirja alusel. Bakalaureusetöö. [The Comparison of Estonian Signs with Russian Signs Based on Swadesh 200-word List. BA thesis.] Tartu Ülikooli eripedagoogika osakond.

Trükmann, Monika 2006. Ajasuhete väljendamine eesti viipekeeles. Magistritöö. [Expressing Time in Estonian Sign Language. Master’s thesis]. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool.

Van den Bogaerde, Beppie 2000. Input and interaction in deaf families. – Sign Language and Linguistics, 3 (1), 143–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sll.3.1.12bog

Van den Bogaerde, Beppie; Baker, Anne 2008. Code-mixing in signs and words in input to and output from children. – Carolina Plaza-Pust, Esperanza Morales-López (Eds.). Sign Bilingualism. Language Development, Interaction, and Maintenance in Sign Language Contact Situations. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1–27.

Verschik, Anna 2008. Emerging Bilingual Speech: From Monolingualism to Code-Copying. London: Continuum Publishers.

Zabrodskaja, Anastassia 2005. Vene-eesti koodivahetus Kohtla-Järve vene emakeelega algkoolilastel. [Russian-Estonian Code-Switching among Russian-Speaking Primary School Children in Kohtla-Järve.] Tallinna Ülikooli eesti filoloogia osakonna toimetised 6. Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus.

Zabrodskaja, Anastassia 2009. Russian-Estonian Language Contacts: Grammatical Aspects of Language Use and Change. Tallinn University dissertations on humanities. Tallinn: Tallinn University Press.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/ERYa9.03

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2013 Kadri Hein

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

ISSN 1736-2563 (print)
ISSN 2228-0677 (online)
DOI 10.5128/ERYa.1736-2563