Gender variation in signs of sexual behaviour in Hong Kong Sign Language
This paper discusses possible gender variation in the signs of sexual behaviour in Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL). The data comes
from a research project that aims at documenting and analyzing sex-related signs in this sign language for the sake of producing
materials for sex education and interpreter training programs. Since sex is a highly taboo topic, euphemistic signs for the target
concepts were collected and analyzed. This paper presents evidence that linguistic variation of neutral and euphemistic
expressions of sex-related concepts exists in HKSL, and that gender plays a role in the choice of some but not all variants and
their euphemistic counterparts.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Sociolinguistic variation in signed and spoken languages
- 1.2Taboos and euphemisms in spoken and signed languages
- 2.Research questions and methodology
- 2.1Research questions
- 2.2Methodology
- 2.2.1Informants
- 2.2.2Elicitation materials and methods
- 3.Findings and discussions
- 3.1Sex-related expressions in HKSL
- 3.2Signing variation in the signs of sexual behaviours in HKSL
- 3.3The roles of gender in the choice of linguistic variants
- 3.4Euphemistic expressions and the role of gender in the use of these expressions
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
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