Words in Hand

We chose those three examples because we thought they might be a little bit more difficult for both of the teams, not only the hearing team. That's because we weren't sure whether there were generally accepted signs for those objects, so we were interested to see what the deaf people would do, what would they sign?

They also give us quite a lot of information about how a sign can develop from that picture base, from the person looking at the object and trying to copy something about that. Notice that several of the hearing people used as similar action for the motion of the liquidizer, but their mimes included a lot of other information; holding the jug, putting the food in, putting the switch in, switching on, the motion, taking the lid off, pouring the liquid out, and so on and so on.

The deaf people signs just seem to focus on the essential part of the information, in other words the action. So the sign itself is done in a smaller space and uses a particular handshape and movement. This gives us a clue to what we might think of as a 'creative conflict' about two aspects of BSL structure; the pictorial and the non-pictorial.

We're going to be looking at that conflict again in a later program because we know that this idea is so important in British sign language. But now we're going to leave you with your own little piece of 'creative conflict'- a joke by Clive Mason and again it's without a voiceover. I'm afraid we're just being a little bit cruel to you! See if you can imagine and try and get hold of the punchline. In the next tape we'll give you the chance to see the same joke with a voiceover. So until then, bye for now.