A Comparison Of Chinese And Taiwan Sign Languages

Abstract: It is commonly believed that sign language is a universal language. However, linguists researching sign languages have demonstrated that deaf people from different communities have their own languages. This research is aimed at creating a synchronic lexical comparison of Taiwan Sign Language (TSL) and Chinese Sign Language (CSL). The corpus is a combination of two video databases, one for each of the sign languages. The CSL database is part of the project, "Chinese Deaf People and Linguistic Research on Chinese Sign Language", generously provided by Professor Gong Qunhu from Fudan University, Shanghai. The TSL database, "A Study of Taiwan Sign Language: Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Digital Graphic Dictionary", is provided courtesy of Professor James H-Y Tai at the National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan. The modified Swadesh 100-word list is adopted for the comparison. Two previous studies on language sign comparison, Woodward (1993a) and McKee and Kennedy (2000) are examined in this study. It is found that while Woodward's (1993a) modification of Swadesh list is useful, his approach of comparison is not explicit. It is also found that McKee and Kennedy's approach has problems, particularly with respect to the fifth criteria "other" (in addition to the four phonological parameters of handshape, location, movement, and orientation). However, McKee and Kennedy's methodology has its merits, and can be adopted, although with modifications, for synchronic comparisons across sign language. In developing a new model for lexical comparison based on McKee and Kennedy's approach, it is found that iconicity and iconic motivation play an important role in the comparison of signs. It is also found that since our understanding of the relationship between sign phonology and morphology is limited at this stage, it is hard to make comparisons between a morphologically simple sign and a morphologically complex sign or between two morphologically complex signs. A new model which only applies to comparisons of morphological simple signs is thus proposed in this study. This new model includes iconicity, iconic motivation, handedness, and four phonological parameters--handshape (dez), location (tab), movement (sig), and orientation (on). This new model makes use of a flowchart, and develops three paths and six patterns of similar and different signs. With 11 pairs of signs involving compound signs exclude from the comparison in this study, the result of the lexical comparison of the remaining 89 pairs of CSL and TSL signs using the new model are: 11 identical signs, 11 similar signs, and 56 different signs. The paucity of identical and similar signs suggests the likelihood that CSL and TSL are unrelated languages. Since research into CSL and TSL is still in its infancy, there is a great deal of linguistic research and challenges in the future.