Exploring British Sign Language via Systemic Functional Linguistics

One of many natural sign languages in use around the world, British Sign Language (BSL) operates as a fully-fledged semiotic system in the visual-spatial modality, through the simultaneous use of embodied articulators. Filling a gap in current research, this book investigates visual-spatial communications from a functional perspective. Presenting a description and analysis of BSL from the perspective of Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics, Luke A. Rudge explores how BSL users make meaning from three different yet interrelated perspectives: - How exchanges of information are managed at a social level (the interpersonal metafunction) - How experience is encoded in the language (the experiential metafunction) - How communications are organised into coherent parts and wholes (the textual metafunction) Examining these perspectives both separately and together, Exploring British Sign Language via Systemic Functional Linguistics places them within the context of current observations in sign linguistics, providing a complementary viewpoint on how visual-spatial communications may be understood as social semiosis.

Luke A. Rudge is a Visiting Fellow of the Bristol Centre for Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK.

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 1. Introducing British Sign Language: A Sociocultural and Linguistic Overview 2. Contextualising British Sign Language within a Systemic Functional Framework 3. Exploring the Interpersonal Metafunction 4. Exploring the Experiential Metafunction 5. Exploring the Textual Metafunction 6. Combining the Metafunctions: Analysing BSL from Three Perspectives 7. Looking Back and Looking Forward References Index