Signed languages and globalization

Deaf peoplewho form part of a Deaf community communicate using a shared sign language. When meeting people from another language community, they can fall back on a flexible and highly context-dependent form of communication called INTERNATIONAL SIGN, in which shared elements from their own sign languages and elements of shared spoken languages are combined with pantomimic elements. Together with the fact that there are few shared sign languages, this leads to a very different global language situation for deaf people as compared to the situation for spoken languages and hearing people as analyzed in de Swaan (2001). We argue that this very flexibility in communication and the resulting global communication patterns form the core of deaf culture and a key component of the characterization of deaf people as “visual people.” (Globalization, sign language, international sign, Deaf culture, language contact, multilingualism)* I N T R O D U C T I O N Imagine the following: a seventeen year old sits behind a computer in his bedroom in Amsterdam, big grin on his face, signing to the screen. As is turns out, he and some four friends from Denmark, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Germany are chatting together via Oovoo, a video conferencing program. They can all see each other at the same time. The kids met at an international Deaf camp in Finland and now, back in their own countries, chatter away in international sign, not having a shared sign language to use. They communicate, © Cambridge University Press, 2011 0047-4045/11 $15.00 483 Language in Society 40, 483–505. doi:10.1017/S0047404511000480