Mexican Sign Language, an endangered language? Bimodal contact and sociolinguistic documentation

Mexican Sign Language (LSM) shares with the indigenous languages of Mexico a marginal status. Being a minority language, lsm is at a disadvantage in a cultural context where Spanish determines the social value of communication. Unlike indigenous languages, LSM is not a verbal language. Its contact w...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: L.-Dellamary, Luis Escobar
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:México
Institución:UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO
Repositorio:Estudios de Lingüística Aplicada
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:ela.enallt.unam.mx:article/420
Acceso en línea:https://ela.enallt.unam.mx/index.php/ela/article/view/420
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Mexican Sign Language; languages in contact; pidgin; bimodal contact; signed Spanish; Deaf community in Culiacan, Mexico
Lengua de Señas Mexicana; lenguas en contacto; pidgin; contacto bimodal; español signado; comunidad de sordos en Culiacán, México
Descripción
Sumario:Mexican Sign Language (LSM) shares with the indigenous languages of Mexico a marginal status. Being a minority language, lsm is at a disadvantage in a cultural context where Spanish determines the social value of communication. Unlike indigenous languages, LSM is not a verbal language. Its contact with Spanish cannot cause a displacement within the Mexican Deaf community. In contrast, the contact between verbal and sign language entails effects that affect the original structure of language. The rate at which these changes take place is considerable and is advancing with no opposition. This paper is a first approach to the sociolinguistic conditions of the Deaf community in Culiacan, Sinaloa. I describe the differences between the two types of contact: unimodal – contact between two verbal or sign languages and – bimodal – between a sign and a verbal language. The results of the latter are linguistic variations that may be masked as the standard language. The real threat is the lack of information about what is and is not LSM.