Did you know that Fiji sign language has its own word order and structure? Two master’s Graduates of Arts in Linguistics, majoring in Sign Linguistics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong recently presented research findings proving this as a form of community awareness at The University of the South Pacific in August last year.
Inise Tawaketini is a non-deaf (hearing) educator while Krishneer Sen is deaf who also passionately advocates for people with disabilities. “For sign language research, it is recommended that we work together with deaf researchers because the language is theirs,” said Ms Tawaketini In this instance Mr Sen, was an important aspect of the research as he is a native speaker of sign language.
Ms Tawaketini explained that sign language can only be done successfully when working with a deaf researcher as they are the ones that experience the barriers and challenges.
It seems that the English language has quite an influence on sign language. Ms Tawaketini and Mr Sen provided insight on how the English language has had a heavy impact on sign language with regards to its sentence structure and formation.
“There is a strong influence of English on sign language, in Fiji we think that sign language is equivalent to English and that it must be signed in the English word form” Ms Tawaketini said.
According to the research graduates, the placement of the noun order is quite flexible when compared to other sign languages, from this the placement of the noun would vary.
“Sometimes the deaf would sign where the nouns would be at the beginning of the sentence followed by the adjective and the number.”
Ms Tawaketini then stated that the nouns can either be placed in the middle or at end of a sentence. It was also noted in the presentation that many of those that have hearing impairment did not have early access to their language which has resulted in many variations of sign language.
“Many of these deaf informers did not have access to their language.
“Our parents were speaking to us in either Fijian, English, Rotuman, Samoan and so we grew up in a strong foundation of our own language.”
Unfortunately for the deaf they were at a disadvantage as most, if not all their family members were hearing and knew very little to nothing about sign language.
“So, they miss out on that early period of language acquisition, so that is why there was a lot of flexibility in the order of the noun phrase.”
While unfortunately missing out on the important language acquisition, once they start using sign language, they are then signing in the English word formation or order.
What does this mean for deaf students when they go to school? It means that they would then have difficulty differentiating between the English word structure and their own language.
“In schools it is understandable that they do that, with the idea that deaf students will learn the English grammar,” Ms Tawaketini said.
This unfortunately led to a disadvantage for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. According to her, it is important for all stakeholders to understand the order of the various noun phrases.
“For the deaf school, we try and teach the English grammar which can be frustrating for teachers when the deaf children are writing, and the order is all over the place”.
“So, if teachers know that difference, they would be able to explain using a bilingual approach and be better equipped if they knew the two languages,” she said.
Ms Tawaketini also discussed how cognitive brain development is dependent on language exposure at a young stage regardless of whether it is spoken or conveyed in sign language while Mr Sen
shared on non-manual and manual signs of negation. “I wanted to find out the different negators that were found in the Fijian sign language,” he said.
This was done through the collection of data using questionnaires. He also stated some of the ways in which we express negation which is the
way one wishes to express something using negative, clauses, phrases, and words.
“Your facial expression can show negation, through your eyebrows, eyes, mouth and shaking of your head which all have meaning when you use it in a sentence.”
“So, in my research for the non-manual features, the most common one was the handshake, and these add more intensity and expression to what we try to say,” Mr Sen said.
An important significance was that negations come at the end of the sentence whereas in the English language it appears before the verb. This was further explained with the use of examples for better understanding.
“The windows were not closed,” is how a sentence would be expressed in the English language whereas when using Fiji sign language, the sentence would be “the window closed not”.
Another important point that was shared during their presentation was the assumption of Fiji sign language being “broken English” is untrue. With Fiji sign language, one must ensure that they are expressing themselves well by using non-manual features, grammar, and word order and to avoid ungrammatical sentences.
Mr Sen also restated a few points. Some of the challenges faced by persons with disabilities include the lack of professional sign language interpreters, the lack of reasonable accommodation and provided communication and attitudinal barriers and institutional barriers.
In summary, these all focus on the perspective and collaboration with society, in terms of having the means to go to school and work like an ablebodied individual and breaking the barriers of judgment and separation from members of the community.
“Inclusive and accessible society for me means a perfect world without communication, institutional and attitudinal barriers.”
He personally hopes to live in a world without communication barriers and that he can freely use Fiji sign language. In line with this, Ms Tawaketini stressed the importance of strengthening sign language research and awareness in the community.
“To ensure their language is respected and preserved, research needs to be done to document its lexicons, grammar and syntax.”
“To ensure that Deaf people have full access to information, we must sign following the rules of Fiji Sign language.”
Ms Tawaketini shared more ways in empowering and including persons with disabilities in the community.
“Include persons with disabilities in forums that will be discussing areas that will affect them.”
“Provide quality service as this will send the message that they matter.”
“Raise the standard of special education in Fiji.”
“Train specialists so they can provide trainings locally such as Sign language Interpreting programs.”
She also said to strengthen the early detection, referrals, and intervention programs to minimise the effects of the impairment on children with disabilities and provide training for parents so they can have the skills to raise their children with disabilities.
