Lexical Variation in Italian Sign Language
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2012
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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Abstract
Italian Sign Language, or LIS, is a language rich in lexical differences. One person might sign AUGUST
by passing a thumb across their brow; someone else might articulate it as two hands fanning the signer.
There is anecdotal evidence that lexical variation is especially rich in the month and color signs; this
thesis seeks to record and catalog the variations collected from 12 signers during a reunion at the
Tommaso Pendola School in Siena, Italy. The similarities and differences among variants for a single
concept/sign (for instance, RED) are discussed.
The background of LIS and Italian deaf education is important to this research. The trends in European
Deaf education are explored, starting with the Spanish monk Pedro Ponce de Leon and the French Abbé
de L’Epée. The influence of the Milan Congress’s decision that oralism, not the teaching of sign
language, was the preferred method for teaching deaf students, and the state of deaf education in Italy are
both described in order to give some sociological context to the data; the influence of oralism also
accounts for the common practice of mouthing parts of Italian words as the LIS sign is being articulated.
The historical changes in the morphology and phonology of LIS are also described in order to pick out
trends in the data; specifically, the tendency for signs to move from having contact on the face or hands
to being signed in neutral space is mentioned.
All of these are preludes to the core of the work, which is contained in the variation charts for each
month or color. Several signs are highlighted and discussed in particular because of their interesting
behavior; some variants for the signs PURPLE and GREEN are mentioned because they are similar to
each other. Both use initialization of the letter V as their iconic root.
The influence of the Church and other sociolinguistic factors in variant form and choice is not to be
ignored; there is strong evidence that cultural references factor into the iconic roots of several signs,
notably the Christmas-themed variants of DECEMBER. The data is analyzed using several statistical
methods to examine sociolinguistic trends, paying particular attention to how many times a pair of
interviewees uses the same sign variants. The geographic origin of the interviewees is shown to have
some statistically significant effect on their lexical choices, and Tuscan interviewees are the only ones
who use certain signs, for example in the case of ORANGEB.
Overall, this thesis is an exploration of the extent that LIS varies in this specific set of signs, celebrating
the beauty and complexity of the language.