Article published In:
Sign Language & LinguisticsVol. 20:1 (2017) ► pp.109–128
In this issue
Emerging linguistic features of Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language
Ana Mineiro | Center of Interdisciplinary Research on Health (CIIS), Health Sciences Institute, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon
Patrícia Carmo | Center of Interdisciplinary Research on Health (CIIS), Health Sciences Institute, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon
Mara Moita | Center of Interdisciplinary Research on Health (CIIS), Health Sciences Institute, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon | Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Sara Carvalho | Center of Interdisciplinary Research on Health (CIIS), Health Sciences Institute, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon
In Sao Tome and Principe there are approximately five thousand deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. Until recently, these people had no language to use among them other than basic home signs used only to communicate with their families. With this communication gap in mind, a project was set up to help them come together in a common space in order to create a dedicated environment for a common sign language to emerge.
In less than two years, the first cohort began to sign and to develop a newly emerging sign language – the Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language (LGSTP). Signs were elicited by means of drawings and pictures and recorded from the beginning of the project. The emergent structures of signs in this new language were compared with those reported for other emergent sign languages such as the Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and the Lengua de Señas de Nicaragua, and several similarities were found at the first stage.
In this preliminary study on the emergence of LGSTP, it was observed that, in its first stage, signs are mostly iconic and exhibit a greater involvement of the articulators and a larger signing space when compared with subsequent stages of LGSTP emergence and with other sign languages. Although holistic signs are the prevalent structure, compounding seems to be emerging. At this stage of emergence, OSV seems to be the predominant syntactic structure of LGSTP. Yet the data suggest that new signers exhibit difficulties in syntactic constructions with two arguments.
Keywords: sign language emergence, vocabulary development, iconicity, word order, language policy, home signs
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Emergence of new sign languages
- 3.Method
- 3.1Sample
- 3.2Procedure
- 3.3Analysis
- 4.Emerging linguistic features of Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language (LGSTP)
- 4.1Iconicity as a major factor in the emergence of signs
- 4.2Phonological characteristics of emerging signs
- 4.3Trends in emergent morphology
- 4.4Emerging syntax
- 4.5Sign development
- 5.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References
Al-Fityani, Kinda
2007 Arab sign languages: A lexical comparison. Technical Report. Center for Research in Language Newsletter 19(1).
Aronoff, Mark, Irit Meir, Carol A. Padden & Wendy Sandler
2008 The roots of linguistic organization in a new language. Interaction Studies: Special Issue on Holophrasis vs. Compositionality in the Emergence of Protolanguage 9(1). 131–150.
Carmo, Patrícia, Ricardo Oliveira & Ana Mineiro
2013 Dicionário da Língua Gestual de São Tomé e Príncipe – Dicionário oficial da República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe. Lisboa: UCEditora.
Caroça, Cristina
In preparation. Contribution to the study of epidemiological factors associated with sensorineural hearing loss in the population of Sao Tome and Principe. Lisbon: Catholic University of Portugal. PhD dissertation.
Cormier, Kearsy
2012 Pronouns. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds.), Sign language. An international handbook (HSK – Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science), 227–244. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. 
Dachkovsky, Svetlana, Christina Healy & Wendy Sandler
2013 Visual intonation in two sign languages. Phonology 30(2). 211–252.
Fischer, Susan & Harry van der Hulst
2011 Sign language structures. In Mark Marschark & Patricia E. Spencer (eds.), The Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education, Volume 11 (2nd edition), 336–349. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frishberg, Nancy
1975 Arbitrariness and iconicity: historical change in American Sign Language. Language 511. 696–719.
Goldin-Meadow, Susan
2003 The resilience of language: What gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how all children learn language. New York: Psychology Press.
Kegl, Judy, Ann Senghas & Marie Coppola
1999 Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In Michael DeGraff (ed.), Language creation and language change: creolization, diachrony, and development, 197–237. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kisch, Shifra
2012 Demarcating generations of signers in the dynamic sociolinguistic landscape of a shared sign-language: the case of the Al-Sayyid Bedouin. In Ulrike Zeshan & Connie de Vos (eds.), Sign languages in village communities: anthropological and linguistic insights, 87–125. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Hockett, Charles F.
1960 The origin of speech. Scientific American 2031. 88–111.
Labov, William
1994 Principles of linguistic change. Volume I: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
2001 Principles of linguistic change. Volume II: External factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
Liddell, Scott K.
1980 American Sign Language syntax. The Hague: Mouton.
Meir, Irit & Wendy Sandler
2008 A language in space. The story of Israeli Sign Language. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Meir, Irit, Wendy Sandler, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff
2010 Emerging sign languages. In Mark Marschark & Patricia E. Spencer (eds.), The Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education, Volume 21, 267–280. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Padden, Carol, Irit Meir, Wendy Sandler & Mark Aronoff
2010 Against all expectations: Encoding subjects and objects in a new language. In Donna Gerdts, John Moore & Maria Polinsky (eds). Hypothesis A / hypothesis B: Linguistics explorations in honor of David M. Perlmutter, 383–400. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Perniss, Pamela, Robin L. Thompson & Gabriella Vigliocco
2010 Iconicity as a general property of language: Evidence from spoken and signed languages. Frontiers in Psychology 11. 1–15.
Sandler, Wendy
2005 An overview of sign language linguistics. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 2nd ed., 328–338. Oxford: Elsevier.
Sandler, Wendy, Irit Meir, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff
2005 The emergence of grammar: Systematic structure in a new language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 102(7). 2661–2665.
Sandler, Wendy
2010 Prosody and syntax in sign languages. Transactions of the Philological Society 1081. 298–328.
Sandler, Wendy, Irit Meir, Svetlana Dachkovsky, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff
2011 The emergence of complexity in prosody and syntax. Lingua 121(13). 2014–2033.
Senghas, Ann
1995 Children’s contribution to the birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT PhD dissertation.
Senghas, Ann, Sotaro Kita & Aslı Özyürek
2004 Children creating core properties of language: Evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. Science 3051. 1779–1782.
Senghas, Ann, Marie Coppola, Elissa Newport, Ted Supalla
1997 Argument structure in Nicaraguan Sign Language: the emergence of grammatical devices. In Elizabeth Hughes, Mary Hughes & Annabel Greenhill (eds.), Proceedings of the Boston University conference on language development (BUCLD), 550–561. Boston, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Taub, Sarah F.
2000 Iconicity in American Sign Language: Concrete and metaphorical applications. Spatial Cognition and Computation 2(1). 31–50.
Taub, Sarah. F.
2001 Language from the body: Iconicity and metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Woll, Bencie, Rachel Sutton-Spence & Frances Elton
2001 Multilingualism: the global approach to sign language. In Ceil Lucas (ed.), The sociolinguistics of sign languages, 8–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zeshan, Ulrike
(ed.) 2006 Interrogative and negative constructions in sign languages. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.
Cited by
Cited by 16 other publications
Dachkovsky, Svetlana, Rose Stamp & Wendy Sandler
2018. Constructing Complexity in a Young Sign Language. Frontiers in Psychology 9 
Flaherty, Molly, Asha Sato & Simon Kirby
2023. Documenting a Reduction in Signing Space in Nicaraguan Sign Language Using Depth and Motion Capture. Cognitive Science 47:4
Mineiro, Ana
2023. Editorial: Challenges in language evolution research. Frontiers in Psychology 14
Mineiro, Ana, Inmaculada Concepción Báez-Montero, Mara Moita, Isabel Galhano-Rodrigues & Alexandre Castro-Caldas
2021. Disentangling Pantomime From Early Sign in a New Sign Language: Window Into Language Evolution Research. Frontiers in Psychology 12
Mineiro, Ana & Mara Moita
2024. Chapter 7. The pantomime roots of Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language. In Perspectives on Pantomime [Advances in Interaction Studies, 12], ► pp. 159 ff.
Moita, Mara, Ana Maria Abreu & Ana Mineiro
2023. Iconicity in the emergence of a phonological system?. Journal of Language Evolution 8:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Müller, Cornelia
2024. Chapter 9. Gestural mimesis as “as-if” action. In Perspectives on Pantomime [Advances in Interaction Studies, 12], ► pp. 217 ff.
Placiński, Marek, Przemysław Żywiczyński, Theresa Matzinger, Marta Sibierska, Monika Boruta-Żywiczyńska, Anna Szala & Sławomir Wacewicz
2023. Evolution of Pantomime in Dyadic Interaction. A Motion Capture Study. Journal of Language Evolution
Pleyer, Michael & Stefan Hartmann
2024. Cognitive Linguistics and Language Evolution,
Sibierska, Marta, Przemysław Żywiczyński, Jordan Zlatev, Joost van de Weijer & Monika Boruta-Żywiczyńska
2023. Constraints on communicating the order of events in stories through pantomime. Journal of Language Evolution 8:1 ► pp. 18 ff.
Wacewicz, Sławomir & Przemysław Żywiczyński
2024. Chapter 4. Two types of bodily-mimetic communication. In Perspectives on Pantomime [Advances in Interaction Studies, 12], ► pp. 100 ff.
Zlatev, Jordan, Przemysław Żywiczyński & Sławomir Wacewicz
2020. Pantomime as the original human-specific communicative system. Journal of Language Evolution 5:2 ► pp. 156 ff.
Żywiczyński, Przemysław, Johan Blomberg & Monika Boruta-Żywiczyńska
2024. Introduction. Perspectives on pantomime. In Perspectives on Pantomime [Advances in Interaction Studies, 12], ► pp. 1 ff.
Żywiczyński, Przemysław, Marek Placiński, Marta Sibierska, Monika Boruta-Żywiczyńska, Sławomir Wacewicz, Michał Meina & Peter Gärdenfors
2024. Praxis, demonstration and pantomime: a motion capture investigation of differences in action performances. Language and Cognition ► pp. 1 ff.
Żywiczyński, Przemysław, Marta Sibierska, Sławomir Wacewicz, Joost van de Weijer, Francesco Ferretti, Ines Adornetti, Alessandra Chiera & Valentina Deriu
2021. Evolution of conventional communication. A cross-cultural study of pantomimic re-enactments of transitive events. Language & Communication 80 ► pp. 191 ff.
Żywiczyński, Przemysław, Sławomir Wacewicz & Casey Lister
2021. Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1824
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.