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Variation and Change in Varieties of British Sign Language in England

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Sociolinguistics in England

Abstract

British Sign Language (BSL) is the language used by the deaf community in the UK. In this chapter, we describe sociolinguistic variation and change in BSL varieties in England. We show how factors that drive sociolinguistic variation and change in both spoken and signed language communities are broadly similar. Social factors include, for example, a signer’s age group, region of origin, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status. Linguistic factors include assimilation and co-articulation effects. Some other factors, such as age of acquisition, however, appear unique to signing communities.

Sections of this chapter have been adapted from the following two publications: Schembri and Johnston (2013) and Schembri et al. (2010).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/2011censusquickstatisticsforenglandandwales/2013-01-30

  2. 2.

    Glosses of signs are generally represented with the use of upper-case letters in the sign language linguistics literature.

  3. 3.

    http://www.bslcorpusproject.org

  4. 4.

    Video clips of the regional variants for all of these 41 items can be found on the BSL Signbank website: http://bslsignbank.ucl.ac.uk/regional/

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Adam Schembri

  2. University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Rose Stamp

  3. Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

    Jordan Fenlon

  4. University College London, London, UK

    Kearsy Cormier

Authors
  1. Adam Schembri
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  2. Rose Stamp
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  3. Jordan Fenlon
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  4. Kearsy Cormier
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Natalie Braber

  2. Department of English and American Studies, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany

    Sandra Jansen

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Schembri, A., Stamp, R., Fenlon, J., Cormier, K. (2018). Variation and Change in Varieties of British Sign Language in England. In: Braber, N., Jansen, S. (eds) Sociolinguistics in England. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56288-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56288-3_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56288-3

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