With simultaneous French-LSF interpretation.
Abstract
France's linguistic heritage includes not only spoken French, as it is used today in various forms around the world, but also French Sign Language (LSF), whose history is more opaque, but which underwent great cultural development in the 18th and 19th centuries with the creation of schools for deaf children. Thanks to the creation of similar schools abroad, LSF became the ancestor of many of the world's sign languages, including American Sign Language (ASL) and Brazilian Sign Language (Libras).
But sign languages, like spoken languages, change and evolve, giving rise to linguistic diversity at all levels of linguistic structure. In this seminar, we will explore this diversity at several levels, namely phonology, syntax and semantics. We will examine the linguistic systems of a variety of sign languages - some related to LSF, others not. In general, sign languages fit into typologies of linguistic variation known from spoken language, but they also sometimes exhibit properties that seem unique to the signed modality. Cross-linguistic work on sign languages can therefore give us a new perspective on linguistic variation and language families, as well as an understanding of the role of modality.
