engleski

Aspects of deictic expression in American Sign Language and Croatian Sign Language

Sign languages are many and not universally understood amongst each other. Every sign language has its own history and specific linguistic characteristics which make it individually diverse from all the others. This paper analyses and compares two sign languages – American Sign Language or, shorter, ASL and Croatian Sign Language or HZJ (Hrvatski Znakovni Jezik). Both sign languages historically originate from the French Sign Language, but have, through time, developed their own grammar, syntax and style of signing. Taking into account their shared language roots, both ASL and HZJ have a portion of grammar, syntax and sign vocabulary in common. The research was, in part, conducted in order to observe how many characteristics these languages share. The primary purpose of research was to compare the personal, temporal and spatial aspects of deictic expression in the two sign languages. First, a theoretical background of the two languages was researched and then used as a basis for understanding the theoretical background of language formation. After the formation of the theoretical basis, the on field research was done by conducting a two-part interview. The first part of the interview was purely informatively based to get the participants’ linguistic history, while the second part of the interview consisted of a series of sentences designed to elicit the three types of deictic expressions. By using it in that context the participants utilized all three forms of deictic expression. The different aspects of deictic expressions in the two sign languages were compared. The obtained data were then interpreted through the process of descriptive analysis. The results showed more similarities than differences in the signing of the given sentences by the Croatian Sign language and American Sign Language participants. However, their etymological characteristics were clearly seen, especially when taking into account the oralist tradition in the education of the deaf in Croatia.

American Sign Language, Croatian Sign Language, ASL, HZJ, deictic expression, temporal expressions, spatial expressions, sign language, Deaf, deafness, oralism

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