Concept Formation in Mathematics in Finnish Sign Language
(English)
Numerous studies have shown that deaf children and adults lag behind hearing individuals in terms
of arithmetical and mathematical performance. Students’ performance remains constantly “below
basic level”: deaf students’ perceptions of measurements, numbers, fractions and arithmetic
comparisons (see Bull 2008, Foisack 2003 among others). This bias should, however, be questioned
since there is no evidence to suggest that deaf subjects would have had the opportunity to apply
visual calculation strategies in sign language (cf. Korvorst, Nuerk & Willmes 2007).
Using the framework of ethnographic discourse analysis (e.g. Blommaert 2006) we present the
findings from a corpus containing signed mathematical discourse of eight native signers in Finnish
Sign Language (FinSL). The data consists of problem-solving monologues and tutorial dialogues
where mental arithmetic processes including addition, subtraction, division and multiplication are
articulated in sign language in natural settings.
Conceptual mapping in signed mathematics is visual counting carried out using fingers, both hands
and the three-dimensional neutral space as a visual abacus in front of the signer. Fingers, hands and
spatial layers are used as buoys (c.f. Liddell 2003) to retrieve, for example, subtotals in a regular,
syntactically well-defined manner proceeding, however, in a reverse order than is suggested e.g. in
textbooks for mathematics. The process is intelligible to all native signers monitoring the
calculation processes, but strangely enough, it has never been promoted in the strategies for
improving mathematics instruction in deaf schools nor are its most specialized lexical units present
in mathematics dictionaries produced in FinSL.
References:
Blommaert, J. 2006. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bull, R. 2008. Deafness, Numerical Cognition, and Mathematics. In M. Marschark & P. C. Hauser
(Eds.) Deaf Cognition. Foundations and Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 170–200.
Foisack, E. 2003. Döva barns begreppsbildning i matematik [Mathematical conceptualisation by
deaf children]. Malmö studies in educational sciences No. 7. Diss. Malmö: Lärarutbildningen,
Malmö högskola [Teacher training, Malmö University].
Korvorst, M., Nuerk, H-C. & Wilmes, K. (2007). The hans have it: number representations in adult
deaf signers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 12 (3), 362–372.
Liddell, S. K. 2003. Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge:
University Press.