By Ilan Dwek (Lecturer in the Institute of Education)
Over the years, several BSL Linguistics researchers have commented, or perhaps bemoaned on the decline of the traditional BSL signs which have been ‘adapted’ or perhaps seen as ‘old-fashioned’ or even ‘politically incorrect’ [e.g. ‘slitty eyes’ to denote China or Japan – were in common usage until 1980s when these signs were slowly discontinued]. The consequence is that the older Deaf people would tend to stop using these signs partly in order to ensure that the younger generation would be able to understand.
This is just one evidence of the Deaf community playing a part in developing and standardizing new signs to ensure BSL remains a relevant and effective language.
Examples of new signs since the millennium are Instagram, Zoom, Snapchat, [mostly technology-oriented]. One could argue that like any language, BSL continues to evolve as new signs are created to express new concepts and as a consequence the older signs would become rarely-used.
As we celebrate the International Day of Sign Languages, it is perhaps apt if not ironic that more and more sign languages are showing a variety of signs borrowed from other sign languages as well as international signs. Despite the protestations of several BSL Linguists who have argued for the preservation of not only the BSL itself but also the regional variations, a couple of books have been published looking at uniquely regional signs – one looks at Liverpool signs and the other looks at London and South-East.
Historically, the deaf people in the UK did not move about very much so would tend to stick to their own signs developed within the region they would reside – it was the early 20th century with much improved transport links in the UK that the deaf people began venturing out – if not abroad but all over the UK exposing themselves to different signs – it was then in the late 20th century with the access to more and more deaf programmes using sign language on TV that the Deaf would perhaps subconsciously adopt the signs they see on TV and thereby drop some of the signs they would have used hitherto.
In parallel, the natural migration to and from the UK to other countries, led BSL to more exposure of different sign languages, an example would be the sign for ‘OK’ which the BSL version is both thumbs moving sideways in opposite directions but the British Deaf have increasingly adopted the American Sign Language [ASL] version which is fingerspelt as ‘o’ followed by ‘k’
A different example thus time is borrowed from International Sign and this is the sign, ‘Approved.’ For many years this sign is done by moving two closed fists towards each other and gently bumping against each other [you might imagine two persons in a pub banging their pint glasses together!]
Nowadays, a popular sign is using first three fingers from the right hand and stamping them on the underside of the left hand. It looked like someone rubberstamping a document – a popular international sign which apparently seeped into BSL, and this is one of several instances, others being ‘normal’, ‘none of my business’, ‘people’, etc.
Anecdotally, more people are utilising international sign variants within their signing – while some research has been done over the years exploring the evolution of BSL but not so much about the depth of overseas influence on BSL, though.