How to sign integrate, integrator, integration, and integrating?
Ben | April 28, 2009
(A signed video about this post.)
At my work, it is sometimes essential that a specific meaning of a verb is emphasised. The question is: how can the sign language interpreter distinguish between “integration” and “integrator“, for example?
The technique used in British Sign Language is to adapt the sign to reflect the specific meaning – for example, for “integration”, the basic sign for “integrate” is first signed and then this is followed up with “processor” – in one fast flow, as if both were one whole sign. For the other word, “integration”, this is signed using “integrate” and then following this up with “set”.
The sign for “integration” is “integrate” + “going on”.
The following video demonstrates, in this order: integrate, integrator, integration, and integrating.
English: integrate + or, ion, e, ing…
BSL: integrate + “processor”, “set”, <nothing>, “going on”
Finally, it should be noted that adapting the basic sign to reflect the meaning needn’t be done if this needn’t be emphasised or can be taken as a given.
I hope all this makes any sense, but certainly, I hope, to demonstrate how rich British Sign Language can be.
I've seen a number of signs used for integration, including
MM | April 29, 2009I’ve seen a number of signs used for integration, including “With”, “Mix”, “Joined” etc.. and all used one after another at times. Deaf appear to break things down to the simplest explanation form they can, when faced with a word that puzzles.. Don’t know about ‘work with’ because that isn’t integration, it is a job description ? Integrator e.g. ‘Man/woman help mix people’ was one display I saw, basic but accurate, but prone to misunderstandings. ‘ facilitator was always used the same way, but as we know, they have different meanings. A deaf thesaurus, and a description in full of BSL grammar to put it on a true language footing for reference purposes, seems required. BSL is using the same grammatical ‘rules/associations’ as those used in English ? I think the root issue is the BSL dictionary, not enough was done to consult educated deaf as to the best way forward on the new signs. If others are going the way english was described, then purists are going to challenge that.