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16 Keni meaning. Asigncancombine boththe manner inwhichan eventoccurredand thesigner’s attitude toitsimultaneouslyby modifyinganyaspectof thebasicsign–e.g. thenuancesof ‘I shouldask’, ‘I must ask’ or ‘I will ask’ fromthebasicsign‘I ask’. Signcanthusachieveeffectsintone, characterandmood whicharesimilarto, if notmoresophisticatedthan, effectsin spokenlanguage. Thesimultaneityof Signis another uniquecharacteristic– multipleevents or characters canbedescribedat once. Inone ofherpoems, DorothyMiles(apioneeringAmericanSignpoet and one ofthefoundermembersoftheNew YorkDeafTheatre Companyinthe1960s), describes her cat, abirdandherself sleepinginher gardensimultaneouslyusingbothhands and herface/head. Thiscanalsobeusedforabstract ideas, suchas beingtornbetweentwocultures (e.g. Deaf andAsian), where eachhandsigns a separate culture. Simultaneitycanalsobe used foremphasis,tomakean‘aside’, tocreatecompoundsigns (spaceshuttle), tosignaphrase(borndeaf), toestablishatime frameetc. Sign evolves like any spoken language – newsigns are createdbycombiningexistingsigns or parts of signs innew ways, by devising newones and by borrowing fromother languages. This kindof innovationoccurs extensivelyin‘art Sign’ –themodifiedSignusedinSignpoetry. Anexampleof suchaneologismusedinaSignpoemcomposedbyDorothy Mileswasatwohandedsignwhereonehandmade thesignfor ‘tree’ andtheothermirroredthesamesignupsidedown, thus creatingasinglesignforatreeanditsreflectioninwater. Sign’ssyntaxandgrammararequiteunlikethoseof spoken English. Forexample, inspokenEnglisha sentencemight read ‘Iclimbedthetree’. InSignthisis, bynecessity, ‘Tree–me– climb’. It is necessarytoestablishthetreebeforeanyonecan climbit. ThusSignmustsetascenefirstbeforeanyactioncan happen, aqualitywhichimpartssome affinityforperformance. The‘visualness’ of thelanguagemaybeseeninthespecial kindof ‘pronouns’ or proforms that Signemploys. Manynoun
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Keni 17 signs are followed by one-handed proforms which convey additional information about the noun, usually to do with shape, size or orientationof the object beingdescribed. For example, a single finger is usedtodepict long, thinobjects andmayfollowthe signs for pencil, personor train. Aflat hand (a ‘two-dimensional’ shape) may followthe signs for bed, plate or picture. Acurved, ‘claw’ hand, palmdown(a ‘three-dimensional’ shape)mayfollowthesignsforhouse, rock or cake. Theseproforms demonstrateawayof perceivingform whichis central tothelanguage: thesigner andtheaudience donotjustsee apencil butexperiencethequalitiesof apencil (longandthin). It follows that signs may share particular handshapes if the objects they describe share similar properties –usually properties of shape and size. But signs also have location, orientationandmovementincorporatedinthem. This is one of the fundamental qualities of Sign as a language–it uses space toconveyinformationandtheplacement and movement of signs in space indicate their relationship to each other, a property that the neurologist Oliver Sacks, inhis book, Seeing Voices, terms ‘architectural power’. ToquoteSacks,‘weseethen,in Sign, atevery level–lexical, grammatical, syntactic –alinguisticuseof space: ausethat is amazingly complex, for much of what occurs linearly, sequentially, temporally in speech, becomes simultaneous, concurrent, multileveledinSign.’ Sacks, inhis turn, quotes WilliamStokoe, author of the seminal Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles : ‘Speechhas onlyone dimension–its extensionin time; writinghastwodimensions; modelshavethree; butonly signedlanguages haveattheir disposal four dimensions –the threespatial dimensionsaccessibletoasigner’sbodyaswellas thedimensionof time.’ Theresult of this, says Sacks, is that ‘signed language is not merely proselike and narrative in structure, but essentially cinematic too . . . In a signed

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16

Keni

meaning. Asigncancombine boththe manner inwhichan eventoccurredand thesigner’s attitude toitsimultaneouslyby modifyinganyaspectof thebasicsign–e.g. thenuancesof ‘I shouldask’, ‘I must ask’ or ‘I will ask’ fromthebasicsign‘I ask’. Signcanthusachieveeffectsintone, characterandmood whicharesimilarto, if notmoresophisticatedthan, effectsin spokenlanguage. Thesimultaneityof Signis another uniquecharacteristic– multipleevents or characters canbedescribedat once. Inone ofherpoems, DorothyMiles(apioneeringAmericanSignpoet and one ofthefoundermembersoftheNew YorkDeafTheatre Companyinthe1960s), describes her cat, abirdandherself sleepinginher gardensimultaneouslyusingbothhands and herface/head. Thiscanalsobeusedforabstract ideas, suchas beingtornbetweentwocultures (e.g. Deaf andAsian), where eachhandsigns a separate culture. Simultaneitycanalsobe used foremphasis,tomakean‘aside’, tocreatecompoundsigns (spaceshuttle), tosignaphrase(borndeaf), toestablishatime frameetc. Sign evolves like any spoken language – newsigns are createdbycombiningexistingsigns or parts of signs innew ways, by devising newones and by borrowing fromother languages. This kindof innovationoccurs extensivelyin‘art Sign’ –themodifiedSignusedinSignpoetry. Anexampleof suchaneologismusedinaSignpoemcomposedbyDorothy Mileswasatwohandedsignwhereonehandmade thesignfor ‘tree’ andtheothermirroredthesamesignupsidedown, thus creatingasinglesignforatreeanditsreflectioninwater. Sign’ssyntaxandgrammararequiteunlikethoseof spoken English. Forexample, inspokenEnglisha sentencemight read ‘Iclimbedthetree’. InSignthisis, bynecessity, ‘Tree–me– climb’. It is necessarytoestablishthetreebeforeanyonecan climbit. ThusSignmustsetascenefirstbeforeanyactioncan happen, aqualitywhichimpartssome affinityforperformance. The‘visualness’ of thelanguagemaybeseeninthespecial kindof ‘pronouns’ or proforms that Signemploys. Manynoun

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