Forces shaping sign multilingualism

Abstract

We look at Sign Multilingualism from several perspectives. Section 1.1 compares various branches of bi- and multilingualism research involving sign languages, and equivalent or related phenomena from research on spoken languages, in order to place the study in a wider context of bilingualism research. This section also identifies some interesting phenomena from the
sign language modality and from bimodal situations. Section 1.2 explores how the chapters in this volume offer a broader perspective on language contact and the communicative behaviour of signers and speakers. This perspective goes beyond a
narrow definition of “linguistics”, and includes semiotics, multimodality, translanguaging, and the machinery of multilingual human interaction. Section 2 discusses the main factors that contribute to the communicative settings and outputs described in the volume. These factors include the typological profiles of the languages involved, sociolinguistic norms and social learning, the external linguistic environment, and individual personal factors such as language background and metalinguistic awareness. This section also explores why some of these factors may be facilitative of communication, while others are inhibitive. Finally, section 3 explains how the rest of the volume is structured.