Linda Day: BSL signs come with their own entourage (BSL)

This article is by Linda Day, the Director and founder of Signworld Learn Ltd, which provides online BSL learning, and is a supporter of this site. Find out more here.

You’re probably reading this title, feeling a little bewildered. Bear with me, it’ll make sense soon.

For those who have read my previous articles, you may recall that I have highlighted various reasons why simply asking “what’s the sign for this?”, without capturing the meaning, rarely works. Today, I want to look at a similar area but instead focus on why simply learning how to sign a word, or even teaching others how to sign a word, can lead you onto dangerous ground.

To watch this article signed by Helen Foulkes of Helen Foulkes Translations click play below, or scroll down to continue in English.

Before I explain further, consider the following scenario. Imagine, you have just asked a non-native English speaker how they might greet someone in English. They might naturally say ‘hello’ in a neutral tone. In many situations, this might be just fine.

Now, imagine that this person has just received from a call from their best friend and says ‘hello’ in that same neutral tone. What would their best friend think?

If this person had to greet an audience and said ‘hello’ in that same tone, before delivering a presentation, what would the audience think?

The ideal solution would be for the person to explain that a neutral tone has its own purpose. We all know that we can say ‘hello’ as a question – such as when we go into a room, or ‘hello’ when we see something we like. If we say ‘hellooooo’, it can have comedy factor.

Now, imagine someone asking ‘what is the sign for rain?’. Many people would use the common sign for it, at the same time saying ‘rain’ as a mouth pattern. This might be fine for some parts of a conversation. However, what if the person wants to say “it is raining heavily”, or is asking whether it is raining now or tomorrow?

At this point we now ask: where and when does the eye brow come in? (For those who are new to British Sign Language, when we ask a question in BSL we tend to draw our eyebrows down into a small frown).

When we want to indicate we don’t like the rain, we would sign ‘rain’ using a facial expression to indicate ‘dislike’; sometime we would omit the English mouth pattern word ‘rain’ altogether. When we feel ‘cold and wet from the rain’, we sign ‘rain’, but accompany it not only with the appropriate facial expression but also hunch our shoulders upwards to portray how we are feeling.

Imagine also then, on a very hot day, there is unexpected rain: we sign ‘rain’, with a happy facial expression, the shoulders move down and the body becomes ‘open’ as the rain helps us to feel cool.

Now, the word ‘entourage’ generally refers to a group of people surrounding an important person. In this context, each sign has its own ‘entourage’. By recognising this, it helps us to appreciate the beauty of British Sign Language and prevent us adding more signs to reach the intended ‘weight’. By this we mean that we use only the right number of signs, facial expressions and body movements as we need – no more, no less. The same as having the right amount of people in your entourage if you’re a celebrity.

Bear this in mind now for when you’re watching another person use BSL: look for the entourage. Instead of focusing on the individual sign, look at the person as a whole, see how they use their shoulders, eye brows, how their head moves, what kind of tension their hands are showing. If you capture all of this, you are getting the intended meaning.

You may be thinking “that’s a lot of observation that needs to take place!” You’re right – but like any other language, all you need to do is practise, practise and practise some more. It also goes a long way if you are open minded and appreciate that British Sign Language is too complex to be reduced to something as trivial as having one single sign for any given word.

My advice for any learner is to be very careful when learning a single sign on its own, you may hamper your learning. Ask instead to see the entourage!

To read more articles by Linda Day, click here.

Linda is the Director and founder of Signworld Learn Ltd, which was established in March 2012. She was the former Director at the Centre for Deaf Studies, University of Bristol. Involved in researching and teaching BSL, training BSL teachers, Sign Language Interpreters and others for over 20 years. Specialist in e-learning for sign language learning. One of the first Deaf Sign Language interpreters in the UK and registered as a qualified Interpreter with NRCPD.

Nationally and internationally recognised for her role in the development of teaching BSL, she has led her field in adapting the curriculum to match learner’s needs. Linda feels that combining classroom teaching with the Signworld online learning resources can prove invaluable to any learner, as well as teachers.