RUSSIAN GRAMMAR FEATURES IN RUSSIAN SIGN LANGUAGE DISCOURSE
Sign languages are contact languages because they are often in contact with the spoken
languages used on the same territory. Different theories of contact language formation which
often rely on the spoken language data should be tested on the sign language material. I tested a
recent theory of Typological Matrix (Ansaldo 2009 among others) on Russian Sign Language
data. The theory generally predicts semantically salient and frequent features to be more stable in
contact situations. Russian Sign Language (further RSL) is the language of the Deaf in Russia
and some countries of the ex-USSR. RSL is in permanent contact with Russian in written, oral
and signed forms. Due to the lack of historical data I analyzed not the elements borrowed form
Russian to RSL, but Russian grammar elements in the real RSL discourse, interested in the
question which grammatical features of RSL are more vulnerable to the influence of Russian. I
analyzed a small sample of RSL discourse: ten stories made after a comics story presented to the
consultants. They were requested to tell a story in RSL, and since the stimulus did not contain
any Russian I expected the stories to be told in RSL, not in Signed Russian. But in reality the
consultants used a lot of Russian influenced structures in different areas of RSL grammatical
system.
I have analyzed three grammatical features in the RSL discourse sample: negation, question
formation and word order in the questions and verbal agreement. All these features are different
in Russian and RSL grammars. However, negation appeared to be a stable feature not vulnerable
to Russian influence, while question formation and verbal agreement are more vulnerable to this
influence. In my presentation I will show that this situation agrees with the Typological Matrix
predictions.
References:
Ansaldo U., 2009. Contact languages of Asia. Ecology and evolution. Cambridge University
Press.