Lexical variation in the Ghanaian sign language and its effects on the language development of the hearing impaired

Abstract

This work focuses on the lexical variations in the Ghanaian Sign Language with emphasis on the distinctions between these variations and their effects on the language development of the Deaf. An earlier study investigated by Schembri et al, (2013) focused on the regional lexical variations for colour, names of countries, numbers, and United Kingdom place names. These were elicited as part of the Britain Sign Language (BSL) Corpus project. The results showed that School location and language background were significant predators of lexical variation. The pre SHS class of the Senior High School for the Deaf exhibits lots of lexical variation in the Ghanaian Sign during the English class discussions. This results in loss of time in agreeing to adopt a more formal form of the variant. Data was collected over a year period through the qualitative design approach after which two participants were filmed while signing the variants. Analysis was based on the framework spearheaded by Labov, (1960). The results confirmed that lexical variation are determined by social factors such as school location, age, gender, language background of the signers and the socio-economic status of the Deaf students were predator that contributed the variation. The researcher therefore suggests standardization of the sign language so that its structures can be appropriately defined and used a formal medium of instruction in Deaf schools. Sign language should be made compulsory in mainstream schools so that the Deaf can have more inputs and language models to help them build strong L1 base.