Deaf signers in Douentza, a rural area in Mali

Translanguaging in Yucatec Maya signing communities

“…It would not be appropriate, however, to judge these signers to be communicatively isolated: They doin the absence of a previously established sign languagereceive a rich amount of conventional gestural input from their hearing environment and have, over the course of only one generation, developed complex signed languages with stable lexical and grammatical conventions. Nyst et al (2012) criticise that most "home sign" literature is based on settings where signers are educated following an oralist approach (mostly in the US), neglecting rural environments with little access to formal education but an extensive use of conventional gestures, e.g. in West Africaor Yucatán.…”

“…While other researchers have tried to solve this conundrum by introducing a variety of new terms for scenarios in the "grey area" of the continuum (Nyst 2012: 568) (e.g. "communal home sign" [Zeshan 2011], "rural home sign", "family sign language" [Nyst et al 2012]), it is time to deconstruct the classifications themselves. The lens of translanguaging theory helps to shift our attention from abstract categories to actual language use.…”

“…Being deeply anchored in peoples' semiotic repertoires, gesture partly explains the striking amount of consistency in the signing of individuals who have never been exposed to a shared conventionalised sign language (see also Nyst et al, 2012;for Mali or Green, 2014;for Nepal).…”

Finding Common Ground: Sign Language and Gesture Research in Australia

“…Recently, gesture research has grown rapidly, mainly emerging from studies conducted in the US and the UK. Coupled with the increasing recognition that signed and spoken languages have much in common is the impetus to understand sign languages used in a more diverse range of sociolinguistic circumstances, including those found in rural communities (Zeshan & de Vos 2012;Nyst et al 2012). At the same time a move away from the need to vigorously defend the notion that sign languages are languages in their own right paves the way for a new appraisal of the role that various lexicalized, partially lexicalized and spontaneous unconventionalized instances of human action play in communication.…”

A descriptive grammar of morphosyntactic constructions in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL)

“…Schools have often adopted the philosophy and sign language of the founding and supporting country, which explains the contact of languages, however, did not begin in earnest until the 1990s, when lexicographical projects were undertaken for sign languages in Kenya (Akach 1991) and South Africa (Penn 1992-4). In addition to research on "national" sign languages, a number of village, or rural sign languages have been discovered in Africa, including Hausa Sign Language in Nigeria (Schmaling 2001), Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana (Nyst 2007) and Dogon Sign Language in Mali (Nyst 2012). …”