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From:
"Angus B. Grieve-Smith" Date: Thu Apr 5, 2001 11:06 am Subject: Re: A misconception | ||||||||
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Joe, when you use the word "misconception," you imply that there's a "correct" concept that is obvious. I disagree that the meaning you have given to the word "phonology" is obvious. It's only relatively recently that "phonology" has been used to refer to the smallest distinctive units of language. Before that it meant dealing with sounds. It was a political decision to use the word "phonology" for signed languages rather than Stokoe's "cherology," calculated to emphasize the similarities between spoken and signed languages. I agree with this political decision, but I think it's important to accept that for a certain group of (mostly non-sign) linguists, "phonology" has to do with sounds. There is no misconception, only a different use of the term. In that group of linguists, using phonology for signed languages is a metaphor. It is certainly reasonable to present the conventions of sign linguistics ("here we say 'phonology'") and ask the person to go along, and maybe consider adopting the conventions outside of sign linguistics, but it is not reasonable to assume that these conventions are based on obvious fact and that all other conventions are misconceptions. As regards the word "phonetics," traditional spoken language phonetics deals with sounds and gestures (and probably should deal with perception as well). The signed-language equivalent deals with images, gestures and perception. The argument for using "sign phonology" is that phonology is somehow this abstract, self-contained system that is the same across modalities. I don't think that holds for phonetics. The whole point of phonetics is that it is so low-level that you're not really dealing with the same thing once you get into a different modality. Because of this I think that "sign phonetics" (which I've never heard used) would be a metaphor. -- -Angus B. Grieve-Smith Linguistics Department University of New Mexico | ||||||||
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