THE SIGN THAT DARES TO SPEAK ITS NAME: ECHO
PHONOLOGY IN BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE (BSL)
Bencie Woll
City University, London
ABSTRACT
This paper is concerned with one subgroup of mouth gestures in British Sign Language (BSL)
which share the following features: they are obligatory, are not derived from spoken words, occur
in citation forms of lexical signs, and are specifiers of meaning, rather than adverbials added to
citation forms. The signs in which these components occur are well-formed only if the mouth
gesture is present, and all the mouth gestures require some movement during their production:
either the exhalation or inhalation of breath, or change in mouth configuration during the
articulation of the sign. Because the mouth gestures derive from the actions of the hands, the
term 'echo phonology' is used to describe the system which underlies their production. It is argued
that the mouth components of these signs have a phonological structure which can serve to support
theories about syllable structure in the manual component of sign languages, and can also provide
interesting clues about the possible origins of spoken language phonology.
BACKGROUND
Spoken Components (Mouthings)
A number of studies have reported on the role of oral actions in different s ign languages.
These actions can be divided into two groups: those relating to spoken language, and those
that have developed independently of spoken language. Their functions within sign
languages overlap in some respects, with both serving to specify mea ning and to
disambiguate manual homonyms. Figure 1 illustrates the hierarchy of oral actions and the
terminologies currently in use.
An early study by Vogt-Svendsen (1983) introduced the term 'word pictures' for spoken
components that have been borrowed into a sign language. Schermer (1990) regarded
"spoken components" (mouthings) as a sub-type of "oral component", which in turn is a
sub-type of non-manual activity. Schermer clearly distinguishes between spoken
components involving the articulation of spoken words (with and without voice) by some
signers when using, e.g. Signed Dutch; and spoken components of a sign language which
occur as borrowed elements in the language, rather than as examples of code switching in
contact forms.
More recently, the general term `mouthings' has been used both for mouth patterns
found in loan signs and for mouth patterns found in contact signing. The role of these
elements has been studied in a number of European sign languages (including the sign
languages of Finland (Pimid 1990), Germany (Ebbinghaus & Hessmann 1996), Norway
(Vogt-Svendsen 1983) and the Netherlands (Schermer 1990) although little researched
in ASL (but see Bridges & Metzger 1996). Although research on mouthings may also
lead to a re-analysis of the relationship between spoken and signed languages, as has
been suggested by Ebbinghaus & Hessmann (1996), these forms are not the concern of
this paper.
Oral Components (Mouth Gestures)
In this paper, the term 'oral component' or 'mouth gesture' will be restricted to any
mouth activity which does not derive from the spoken language of the hearing
community in which the deaf community is nested.
Schermer (1990) identifies three functions for obligatory mouthings and mouth
gestures: disambiguation, meaning specification, and as sole carrier of meaning when
there is no manual component.
Disambiguation. Oral actions can serve to disambiguate pairs of signs, where the
manual part of both signs is identical, and the only differences are oral. Mouthings (as
in BSL BATTERY and UNCLE (Fig. 2)) or mouth gestures (BSL BRIGHTON,
EXPENSIVE (Fig. 3)) may be the sole disambiguating element in a pair of signs which
are manual homonyms.
Meaning specification. The second role of mouth actions is to specify meaning, where the hand
activity does not have a meaning in and of itself. The term 'idiom' was originally used for this group in
the BSL literature, because they were not easily translatable into English. However, they do not function
like idioms, and have subsequently been called 'multi-channel' signs (MCS) by Lawson (1983).
Lawson restricts the term MCS only to those signs that include mouth gestures (not mouthings). The
term MCS has recently fallen out of favour for two reasons. Firstly, the use of MCS suggests that all
other signs involve the hands only, and this is clearly not the case. Secondly, in signs such as MOTHER
and MEMBER, borrowed from English via fingerspelling, mouthing serves the same function (Figure
4) as mouth gestures in MCS. The examples originally identified as MCS by Lawson will be
reanalysed below in terms of echo phonology.
Sole Carrier of Meaning. The third function of mouth gestures is to carry meaning where the sign
has no manual component. There are no examples in BSL of mouth-only signs, although there are
several signs with no manual element, in which the lower face is the sole articulator (e.g. a 'schoolgirl'
sign meaning 'menstruation', in which one cheek is slightly puffed).
In all three types above, the mouth activity is operative at the lexical level and is found in the citation
form of signs.
Enaction and Adverbials. The other functions of mouth gestures comprise enaction and adverbials.
The 'enaction' group consists of representations of actions associated with the sign's meaning
(puffing air in BALLOON, biting action in APPLE (Fig. 5).
The adverbial group includes such forms as BSL `tense spread lips' to denote determination, intensity;
'gently pursed lips' meaning relaxed, casual, etc. The mouth gestures in this group represent a 'natural'
mouth configuration: intensity of action is accompanied by tense mouth; relaxed activity is accompanied
by a relaxed mouth. In a second group of mouth gestures the mouth adopts a visually-motivated
configuration: sucked-in cheeks
accompany THIN and puffed-out cheeks accompany LARGE (Sutton-Spence & Woll 1999)
(Fig. 6). One characteristic of adverbial mouth gestures is that they are static configurations. The
position of the mouth is held constant throughout the articulation of the sign. In contrast,
mouthings and echo phonology always involve active movement. Thus the mouth gestures
found in adverbials might better be described as 'mouth arrangements' or 'mouth holds' rather
than mouth actions.
ECHO PHONOLOGY
In the remainder of this paper we will be concerned with one final subgroup of mouth gestures in
BSL which specify meaning. They are not mouthings; they occur in citation forms of lexical signs.
They are specifiers of meaning, not adverbials added to citation forms. They are also not
enactions. The signs in which they are found require the presence of the mouth gesture to be wellformed. Finally, examples are only included in this group if the mouth gesture includes some
movement: either the exhalation or inhalation of breath, or a change in mouth configuration
during the articulation of the sign. The term `echo phonology' (suggested by van der Hulst,
personal communication) will be used to describe them (Woll & Sieratzki 1998). The most
striking feature of the mouth gestures in this group of signs, and the reason for using the term
echo phonology, is that the mouth gestures mirror or echo the manual movements in these signs.
The paper will go on to argue that mouth components of these signs have a phonological structure
which can serve to support theories about syllable structure in the manual component of sign
languages, and can also provide interesting clues about the possible origins of spoken language
phonology.
The examples which follow are found in the Dictionary of British Sign Language/ English
(Brien 1992).
Mouth and Hand Movements
It is known that manual and oral actions are often well co-ordinated (Nobe 1996). An attempt
to close the mouth while opening the hands from Ô will demonstrate the motor links. So it is
not surprising that, in general, mouth gestures will share some features with manual components
of signs. It is important to note for these examples, that as they are not derived from spoken
English (they are not mouthings), the hands 'drive' the mouth, and not the other way around, as
in most gestures accompanying speech.
The essential dependence of the mouthing on the articulatory features of the manual
movement can be seen in three BSL signs all meaning `succeed' or 'win'. Three different oral
patterns of mouthing co-occur with these signs, and one cannot be substituted for the other (Fig.
7).
In SUCCEED, the thumbs are initially in contact, but move apart abruptly as the mouth
articulates /pa/. In WIN, the hand rotates at the wrist repeatedly as the mouth articulates /hy/
(resembling a front rounded vowel); and in WON, the hand closes to Ô, while the mouth
articulates /^p/. Examples 7d and 7e are impossible signs(*) in BSL.
Syllables Occurring in Echo Phonology in BSL
The elements which have been identified thus far are listed below. It is likely that this is not an
exhaustive list. Some articulatory features are given for them; no voiced-voiceless distinction is
operative, and not surprisingly, almost all involve articulations at the front of the mouth or lips,
where they are most visible.
DISCUSSION
Although this research is only in its preliminary stages, further exploration of echo
phonology may provide insights into a number of research areas, in particular, the structure of
the sign syllable, sonority, and language evolution.
Sign Phonology
The earliest model of sign phonology (Stokoe 1960) proposed that the structure of the sign
differed from that of the (spoken) word in that the former had a simultaneous phonological
structure, while the latter had a sequential phonological structure. Since then it has been
recognised that sequential contrasts also are found within signs, and more modern models of
sign phonology describe the underlying structure as consisting of a sequential combination of
segments (e.g. Liddell & Johnson 1989). Sandler (1989) has proposed a basic underlying
structure of Location Movement Location (LML); movements in signs may consist of path
movement (where the hand moves through space (e.g. upwards) or local movement (where
parts of the hand move, e.g. finger wiggling).
The Sign Syllable
Since the recognition of the basic similarity between the phonological structures of signed
and spoken languages, despite the modality difference, researchers have explored other
parallels. The minimal word in spoken languages consists of a single syllable. Within single
syllables, CV (consonant-vowel) syllables have been described as 'unmarked', with V being
applied not only to what are clearly vowels but also to the more sonorant consonants (such as
nasals and liquids, and in some languages, obstruents). Signs tend to be composed of a single
movement and are therefore regarded as monosyllabic (Wilbur 1990; Brentari 1998), with
movements serving the role of vowels. What can echo phonology contribute to this view?
Because the mouth gestures in echo phonology are derived from the manual component of the
sign, they provide a direct opportunity to simultaneously look at the syllable structure of the
manual component in terms of sign phonological theory, and at the syllable structure of the
echo component in terms of spoken language phonological theory. Thus, the data provided
by echo phonology provides a direct and novel insight into the relationships between signed and
spoken phonology.
The syllables found in echo phonology generally consist of no more than two articulated
elements. The echo syllables can occur, in what appears at first to be an apparently random way,
in the forms CV, VC, or V. However, if we look more closely at the syllables above, we can see
clear patterns. CV syllables are associated with the following features: exhalation (syllable types
1, 2), hand opening (1) and movement away from the body and/ or hand separation (1, 2). VC
syllables are associated with inhalation, hand closing, and movement towards the body or hand
contact (syllables 3, 4, 5). The inhalation/exhalation component appears to directly reflect
movement: as the hand(s) move inwards or close, the breath moves inwards; as the hands move
outwards and separate, the breath moves outwards. The C element reflects sign locations such
as closed hands, hands touching each other, and hands touching the body. This evidence from
echo syllables, although preliminary, supports the claim that signs have sequential structure with
Locations corresponding directly to Consonants and Movements to Vowels.
Sonority
Sonority is a term which describes hierarchies of perceptual salience. Researchers in spoken
and signed languages have used data from phonetics and phonological structure to argue that some
elements are relatively more sonorous than others. In spoken languages, sounds articulated with a
relatively more open nasal or oral tract are more sonorous than those articulated with a relatively
more closed nasal or oral tract. They can be heard at a greater distance. In sign languages, manual
movements articulated with more proximal joints (shoulder or elbow) are more sonorous than
those articulated with more distal joints (wrist or fingers). (Cf. Brentari 1998, Sandler 1993.) They
can be seen at a greater distance. The usual articulatory sonority hierarchy is (in decreasing order
of sonority) shoulder > elbow > wrist > base joints of fingers > non-base joints of fingers.
Syllable types 5, 6 and 7 are of particular interest in relation to the sonority hierarchy. Type 5 has
no path movement but it has a closing hand-internal movement, in which the [θ] appears to
represent the movement and the [p] the final closed configuration. Types 6 and 7 are the only ones
to occur as V (without a preceding or following Q. They are not found where there is path
movement, but are only found with hand-internal movement (wiggling in 6, and wrist rotation in
7) in which there is no change in hand configuration at the end of the sign. The echo vowel in all
these syllables consists of a fricative ([θ], [∫], [w], [y]) serving as a syllabic. These are much less
sonorous than the vowels found in syllable types 1-5, and can therefore be used as independent
evidence for the sonority hierarchy proposed for the manual component of signs. It should be
recognised, of course, that fricatives rarely occur as syllabics in spoken languages. However, echo
phonology only makes use of consonants and vowels that are visually distinctive, and syllabic
consonants such as [1], [n] and [r], found, for example in English, are not visually distinctive.
These observations suggest that an examination of echo phonology might provide independent
evidence which can contribute to our descriptions of manual syllable structure, in particular, the
underlying sequential nature of sign syllables and a hierarchy of sonority.
Language Evolution
The recent resurgence of interest in the origins and evolution of language has led to a focus on
whether sign languages represent an earlier stage in the evolution of language than spoken
languages do. Researchers such as Armstrong, Stokoe & Wilcox (1995) have argued on the basis
of syntactic and semantic data that the transition from gesture to sign language preceded the
development of spoken language, using arguments drawn from syntax and semantics. In contrast,
MacNeilage, in a number of papers in the past 6 years (MacNeilage 1994, 1998, MacNeilage &
Davis 2000), has used phonological data to support the view that spoken language did not evolve
from gesture or sign language, but instead from a pattern of open/close alternation of the jaw
underlying the syllable. Paradoxically, echo phonology simultaneously suggests a link between
words and gestures, but from the phonological, rather than semantic perspective.
MacNeilage and Davis (2000) suggest that there are four basic sequential sound patterns in the
words of modern spoken languages and the first words of infants. Three of the patterns involve
intrasyllabic consonant-vowel (CV) co-occurrence: labial (e.g. [p]) consonants with central
vowels, coronal (e.g. [t]) consonants with front vowels, and dorsal (e.g. [k]) consonants with back
vowels. As has previously been discussed, echo phonology found in the sign languages of deaf
communities only uses consonants which may be visually perceived, and therefore may not provide
particularly appropriate data. However, the echo phonology data does not contradict the
observations of MacNeilage and Davis, since in both the CV and VC forms in echo phonology
there does appear to be a tendency for labial consonants to be associated with central vowels
(syllables 1, 3 & 4), with the only front vowel [i] found associated with the consonant [f]
(syllable 2). This would accord with their suggestion that the CV effects may be primarily
biomechanically motivated.
One issue in any theory of language evolution which seeks to relate gesture to spoken language
has always been how the largely visually-motivated forms found in gestures and in sign languages
could possibly be linked to the largely arbitrary words of spoken lan guage. Echo phonology
provides points of insight into a possible mechanism.
The oral actions in echo phonology are themselves not visually motivated. It is impos sible to
reconstruct from a syllable such as [∫] (example 6 above) the meaning 'exists', although the manual
actions can be interpreted as visually representing the marking of in area in space, and therefore
might be interpreted as a visually-motivated form. In the process of echoing the formal movement
and location elements, any iconicity is lost. Thus, echo phonology provides a concrete example
of how arbitrary spoken forms can be derived quite naturally from non-arbitrary gestural forms.
CONCLUSION
This paper represents only a very preliminary exploration of echo phonology in a single sign
language. Further research will be required to identify whether echo phonology is found in other
signs languages, and the forms of echo syllables. In turn, such research may provide further insights
into universals of phonetic and phonological structure, and into the origins and evolution of
spoken and signed language.