We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Taboos and euphemisms in sex-related signs in Asian sign languages.
- Authors
Sze, Felix Y. B.; Wei, Monica Xiao; Wong, Aaron Yiu Leung
- Abstract
This paper investigates sex-related euphemisms in four Asia sign languages, namely, Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL), Jakarta Sign Language (JakSL) (Indonesia), Sri Lankan Sign Language (SLSL) and Japanese Sign Language (JSL). It aims at finding out if direct visual reference to sex-related body parts or concepts is taboo to Deaf signers and if this is the case, what strategies they adopt to form the corresponding euphemistic expressions. It will be argued that even though Deaf signers are used to the visual explicitness of the signing modality, the highly iconic nature of certain sex-related signs can still be offensive at times, thus giving rise to euphemistic expressions. While certain euphemistic strategies by the Deaf signers target at toning down the degree of visual iconicity originally associated with the taboo signs, most of the remaining strategies show striking resemblance to those used in spoken languages, suggesting the universality of these verbal politeness strategies across language modalities.
- Subjects
SIGN language; EUPHEMISM; TABOO; GENDER differences (Psychology); ORAL communication
- Publication
Linguistics, 2017, Vol 55, Issue 1, p153
- ISSN
0024-3949
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/ling-2016-0034