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Macro and micro-social variation in Asia-Pacific sign languages
Edited by Nick Palfreyman
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 6:1] 2020
► pp. 53–88

The effect of sociolinguistic factors on variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon

| Vrije Universiteit Brussel
| Radboud University | International Max Planck Research School, Nijmegen
| Radboud University | Tilburg University
| Radboud University
| Radboud University
| Vrije Universiteit Brussel

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Abstract (International Sign)

Sign languages can be categorized as shared sign languages or deaf community sign languages, depending on the context in which they emerge. It has been suggested that shared sign languages exhibit more variation in the expression of everyday concepts than deaf community sign languages (Meir, Israel, Sandler, Padden, & Aronoff, 2012). For deaf community sign languages, it has been shown that various sociolinguistic factors condition this variation. This study presents one of the first in-depth investigations of how sociolinguistic factors (deaf status, age, clan, gender and having a deaf family member) affect lexical variation in a shared sign language, using a picture description task in Kata Kolok. To study lexical variation in Kata Kolok, two methodologies are devised: the identification of signs by underlying iconic motivation and mapping, and a way to compare individual repertoires of signs by calculating the lexical distances between participants. Alongside presenting novel methodologies to study this type of sign language, we present preliminary evidence of sociolinguistic factors that may influence variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon.

Keywords: lexical variation, sign language, shared sign language, sociolinguistics, Kata Kolok
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Methodological issues
    • 1.2Kata Kolok and its lexicon
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Data collection
    • 2.3Data transcription
    • 2.4Data coding
    • 2.5Data analysis
  • 3.Results and interpretation
    • 3.1Quantifying lexical variation
    • 3.2Entropy – a measure of variation
    • 3.3Lexical distance
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Data and analysis files
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 29 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.19009.mud
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