Linguistics: Gestures and Homesigns

Sociolinguistic Contexts of Homesign Systems

Of Deaf children, 95% are born to hearing parents, who typically do not know signed language. In the absence of accessible signed or spoken language input, deaf individuals create their own gestural system with features of linguistic structure seen in mature, established sign languages. Homesign systems have been observed in two groups: young homesigners and adult homesigners. Both groups are isolated from other deaf individuals and from language exposure. Many studies of young homesigners capture a brief period in childhood before these individuals come into contact with deaf peers or before they enter school. Once young homesigners discover language, they usually abandon their homesign system. In contrast, studies of adult homesigners document gestural systems maintained by individuals throughout their whole lives.

Adult homesigners typically live in remote, rural regions of countries that have no services for the deaf. However, there are instances of homesign systems used by deaf adults even in industrialized nations, usually in relatively geographically isolated and close-knit communities. For example, in the United States adult homesigners live in remote areas of the Appalachian Mountains, and on Brazil’s island of Florianopolis homesigners live and in favelas in hilly, dense areas that are very difficult to access via car.

Incidence of auditory difference and a community’s willingness to embrace the difference and signed communication also have an impact on the existence of homesign systems. According to one study, Keresean Pueblo Sign Language, now an endangered language, began as a homesign system. Because of the high incidence of being deaf in the community, signs developed across multiple generations into a signed language. Comparable language histories have been documented for Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, Nicaraguan Sign Language, and other village languages and family “lects.” Thus, homesign systems exist where deaf individuals live in isolation from other signers. If the signs used by a homesigner spread throughout a community or a group of shared users, and across multiple generations of signers, a new signed language may emerge.

Linguistic Structure in Homesign Systems

Homesign systems provide a rare glimpse into the human capacity to generate language without influence from an established language. Studies have shown that homesigners produce highly elaborate and systematic gestures, with linguistic properties characteristic of mature, established languages. Homesigners typically self-innovate gestures and adapt conventionally used gestures for their own linguistic system. Painstaking transcription and analysis of these [Page 611]gestures reveals systematicity in individual signs and in sign sequences.

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