Words in Hand

What a surprise! The deaf team did even worse than the hearing team. Sometimes hearing people got the right answer, instead of the deaf team. Of course it was a little bit unfair in both cases because we have taken signs out of context, what their meaning is. What we can say is that even if signs have a link to what it means, it's not always immediately obvious to everyone.

Let us take the sign for 'Brussels' as an example. Clark realised that it must be linked to a famous landmark, but he didn't know what it was. Another thing that is clear about that sign is that it has been reduced in form. Remember what we were saying in the first tape? About how signs can start from being picture based and then change when it came to the handshape and the position etc of British Sign Language.

The same thing seems to have happened with this sign in Belgian Sign Language. Because the original sign seemed to have involved balls of some sort and then it got reduced to this sign. So once again we can see that a sign might seem appropriate to us, once we know the meaning. It's definitely not easy to get.

Now we will move on to look at another part of the tape. It's time to save a little bit of time. We will ask you to turn down the sound. We have put the voiceover on, but for the first time you watch this, turn the sound off and see what you can get. Especially from iconic signs and the pictures of signs.

Remember what we’ve said about how signs give a clue as to the shape, or copy an action. See if you can understand some of the signs that you will see.