The Use of Signs and the Coding of Prefix Markers by Teachers at a School foi the Deaf ι

The use of aspects of an artificially devised manual code in a black schoolfor the deaf was examined. The encoding of prefixes, bound with the noun class system, in Tswana as used by seven teachers was studied as well as the consistency of the teachers to code lexical items. Results .indicated the absence of signed prefix markers, inconsistency in signing lexical items and much variability among teachers in the signs used. The educational and research implications are discussed. /'' OPSOMMING Die gebruik van aspekte van "n kUnsmatig ontwikkelde gebarestelsel in 'n swart skool vir dowes, is ondersoek. Die enkodering van voorvoegsels verbonde aan die naamwoordklasstelsel in Tswana soos gebruik deur sewe onderwysers is bestudeer, asook die konstantheid van die onderwyser se vermoe om leksikale items te kodeer. Resultate dui op die afwesigheid van voorvoegselgebare, onkonstantheid van leksikale gebare en baie variasie onder onderwysers t. o. v. die gebare wat hulle gebruik. Die opvoedkundige en navorsingsimplikasies word bespreek. ^ Ο SASHA 1986 77^ South African Journal of Communication Disorders, Vol 33, 1986 R ep ro du ce d by S ab in et G at ew ay u nd er li ce nc e gr an te d by th e Pu bl is he r ( da te d 20 12 )


OPSOMMING Die gebruik van aspekte van "n kUnsmatig ontwikkelde gebarestelsel in 'n swart skool vir dowes, is ondersoek. Die enkodering van voorvoegsels verbonde aan die naamwoordklasstelsel in
The objective of deaf education has always been to teach the child the language of his culture -the culture of the hearing society in which he must live (Bornstein, 1978;Lewis 1984).This objective has pertained irrespective of the mode of communication used in in teaching deaf children.The long standing conflict between the use of oralism and manual communication still prevails although there has been a shift over the last twenty years in most education institutions for the deaf towards the use of manual communication often within a total communication framework.This shift has come about largely due to the apparent failure of oralism and oral education to teach spoken language and the increased use, interest and research into sign languages.
Total Communication embraces an eclectic philosophy, which includes the combined use of a sign language system, manual coding, fingerspelling, speech, auditory training, speech reading, amplification, cueing and any other means whereby the child is taught to encode and decode language.A true natural sign language, which is the visual-gestural language of a deaf community, has its own lexicon, "phonological" and syntactic structure which is systematic and rule-governed.Its basic encoding unit is the word represented by a sign.Inflectional marking is distinguished by spatial temporal dimensions.Nonmanual signs, such as stylised facial expression, also denote syntactic forms, such as question-type and subordinate clauses.(Klima & Belugi 1980;Liddell, 1980;Stokoe, 1978).
It is expected that existing "natural" sign languages in South Africa would show great divergence from each other due to the diverse ethnic, demographic and politically induced separation of social groups as well as differences in the spoken mother tongues.Natural sign language plays a central role in maintaining the culture and ethnocentricity of deaf communities and is bound to the whole culture on one hand and physical constraints of the users on the other (Stokoe 1978;Cokeley and Baker 1980;Erting 1981).
Manual coding differs from natural sign in that it has been artifically devised by educationalists to represent the syntax of spoken language.In addition, some codes represent the morphological structure of the language in varying degrees (Crystal et al. 1976;Evans 1982).However, it is important to note that /tlie more reputable and widely used of these codes supplement the natural sign language, rather than replacing it.In order to relate sign language to coding, Woodward (1972) suggested a sign continuum, with natural sign language at one end and the contrived sign systems at the other.A pidgin sign language occurs between the two extremes and incorporates elements of both signing and coding -it derives from the necessity for communication between deaf and hearing individuals.Manual codes (MC) are used in educational settings and never as the home language of deaf people.Examples of MCs include:-Signed English, Manual English, Seeing Essential English (SEE) and Signing Exact English (SEE2), the Rochester Fingerspelling Method and the Paget-Gorman Sign System (P-G).The latter system was developed in England and is of significance in South Africa.It was first introduced at the Kutlwanong School for the Deaf in Bophuthatswana some twenty-five years ago.No doubt it changed its form over the years of usage and undoubtedly provided part of the framework for the text Talking to the Deaf developed by Nieder-Heitmann past principal of Kutlwanong school for some years.This text has now been introduced into all black schools for the deaf in Southern Africa.
Teaching staff are trained to use Talking to the Deaf by means of short courses and videotape ( Van der Merwe, 1986).I The book Talking to the Deaf consists of 1500 signs which are claimed to be representative of signs used by the majority of deaf South Africans.There is no empirical evidence or published data to support this claim.Penn et al. (1984) provide preliminary evidence to show that these signs are not used by all deaf groups.The relationship of the Nieder-Heitmann (N-H) signs to natural sign languages is therefore much in question.
The South African black languages are heavily morphological, being characterised by a noun class system and extensive agreement based upon that system.Prefixes on the noun stem indicate noun class and number.Th e prefix determines the form of the agreement morphemes of the other sentence constituents, all of which must be brought into agreement with the determining head noun (Cole, 1982).Although the N-H code makes some provisions for manually coding the syntax of black languages, this does not extend to the noun class system.According to Gustason (1983) an effective code increases the input of morphological markers, word endings and other structural elements.
It appears relevant and necessary to explore whether the use by teachers of the recently introduced dictionary of signs -Talking to the Deaf (Nieder-Heitmann, 1980) incorporates adaptations such as prefix markers intrinsic to Tswana, the spoken language of the area.One black school for the deaf was selected for studying this.

METHOD Aims of this study
(1) To determine whether the teachers in a black school for the deaf are encoding certain prefixes of the Tswana language, and if so, what form of coding they are using.
(2) To examine the consistency with which the teachers are reproducing there prefix markers.
(3) To ascertain whether the sign for a lexical item (noun) remains the same when used in isolation and in context by each Teacher Subject.(4) To note whether there is any influence of the signs from the original Paget-Gorman system on the signs used by the subjects for lexical items.
Seven subjects (A,B,C,D,E,F & G), all teachers at a black school for the deaf were selected.In addition, twenty-one pupils at the school were used to simulate a communicative interaction between teacher and pupil.The Teacher Subjects (TS's) were required to be native Tswana speakers and to have taught at the school for at least two years so as to be familiar with the signing methods in use.All the TS's were teaching standards 1-5, in order to ensure that a sign system was used in the classroom, and that the test items were appropriate and meaningful.
The pupils used to simulate a classroom situation were congenitally deaf, their home language was Tswana and they had attended the school for a minimum of two years.They were therefore familiar with the signing system used during this time period.
A National WV361 portable videocamera was used to record each TS's performance on the tasks.
Five Tswana nouns, each from a different noun class and in singular and plural forms were selected.Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2012) These lexical items were chosen for their frequency of use and relevance within the teaching situation.Due to time limitations Noun Classes la, 6, 7, 8 and 9 were excluded.Classes 1 to 4 take both singular and plural prefixes.Multi-syllabic words in class 5 do not take a singular prefix (Cole, 1982).This class was included .to ascertain whether coding of the singular occurs in spite of the absence of a prefix.As the plural prefixes of class 4 and 5 nouns are the same, it would be of interest to note whether they were coded differently.
In addition, the object pronouns of each class were included in the test material as their grammatical form corresponds to the noun prefix.
The Ke a e gama (I milk jt) Each TS was required to sign the selected nouns in the following forms: (1) Singular -in isolation: moruti (teacher).
The subjects were video recorded signing the five nouns to the examiner (E) alone, and to three pupils.This was to ascertain whether the TS's would convey the prefix markers in an instructional setting with more deliberation.The nouns were signed in isolation and in context to see if they changed in form with varied syntactic contexts.
At the end of the study the TS's were also required to complete a questionnaire concerning their awareness of the noun class system in Tswana, and their need to convey such information to their pupils.In addition, information which might influence the TS's proficiency in sign usage was tapped, namely: teaching qualifications, length of teaching experience at the school, method of sign instruction, and perception of consistency of sign usage at the school.
A questionnaire was also completed by the school principal, concerning the school's policy to signing, how the noun class system should be taught and the instruction of teachers in the system.

ANALYSIS OF DATA
The signed nouns will be described, using the Nieder-Heitmann (N-H) code as reference.In addition, the Paget-Gorman signs will be considered in order to compare this original code with N-H and the TS's variations of the N-H code.Each signed noun produced by the TS's was recorded as the same as the N-H system, or a variation (V) or as a totally different sign (D) to the N-H system.The variations or the different signs from the N-H were arranged in terms of the three cheremes described by Stokoe (1976): a) DEZ (Designator) -the configuration of the hands, b) TAB (Tabula) -the location on or near the body while the sign is made, (c) SIG (Signation) -the movement aspect of the hands.
In addition, the signed noun in isolation (condition "a") was compared to its use in a syntactic context (condition "b") and described as the same (S) or different (D).
Myrtle L. Aron, Robyn E. Lewis and Judv L w" 1 " w '"emse Two graduate speech therapists acted as raters to analys sample of the teachers' signs to assess the accuracy of tl^ * V ' de ° and categorization of all the signs as determined bv or , ana ' ysis authors.
e of 'he RESULTS 1. Signed Nouns A. Description of signs There was one occurrence of "moruti" which was totally different, and four occurrences for "podi".It is interestingto note that all TS's used the sign "preacher" rather than "teacher" (moruti).Stokoe and Kuschell (1979) note the significance of cultural factors in language and this may be an example of such cultural factors.
Comparing Tables 1 and 3 it is clearly evident that the P-G signs differ extensively from both N-H and the TS's variations.
Reference will be made in the discussion, to the significance of the lack of similarity between the P-G and the teacher variations, although a study of the pupil's use of natural sign as compared with P-G would be of significant interest.

B. Consistency of use in isolation as compared to use in context
There were two occurrences out of a total of seventy in which the signed nouns were different when used in isolation and context.The influence of syntactic context did not appear to affect the formation of the sign.However, as only a single syntactic context was used, this finding must be viewed with caution.Writers such as Stokoe (1976), andKlima andBellugi (1980) have illustrated much variance in signing in context.Signs may vary in terms of spatial and temporal dimensions.
C. Consistency of use in the demonstration of signs by the TS's to the Ε as compared to the use of signs to pupils.There was also high consistency (80%) for the two situations.Native users of sign language belong to a diglossic community, implying varieties of signing used by the same speaker under different conditions, particularly when addressing deaf or hearing individuals.As the TS's are not native users of sign, and only use it in the educational setting, this may explain the non-variance.

II Prefix Markers
Signed prefix markers were not used by the TS's for any of the test items.This fining indicates that no manual means exist in the signing system for coding the variety of noun classes in Tswana.This was substantiated by the TS's answers to the questionnaire.Five TS's reported that the noun class system is not taugn formally, but is deduced by the pupils from the written form.Τ 1S written form is recorded on a wall-chart, used for learning dn The school principal was uncertain as to how the noun pretixe The Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2012) were taught to the pupils, but believed the teachers used the written mode.A single TS stated that she finger-spelled the prefixes and another emphasized the role of lip-reading.Five TS's stated that no instruction had been given to them on how to convey noun classes.(The remaining two TS's appeared to miscomprehend the question, and responded inappropriately).
Ill The object pronoun and plural forms As indicated above the noun prefixes for both structures were not distinguished through manual means.They were illustrated purely as lexical items by their respective N-H signs or variations thereof, as were the singular nouns.
The most interesting variations occurred for the object pronoun.
The N-H sign does not account for a location shift, according to the direction in space appropriate to the person or object being referred to.However, in the variations used by some TS's (see Table 4) it appears that there was an attempt to increase the morphological information.This is in accordance with pronominalisation in American Sign Language as well as various MCE systems (Gustason 1980).The N-H sign employs the non-manual component of eye direction -the signer is required to look at his hand when signing; presumably to indicate who is being referred to.This was observed in only two of the TS's.
The N-H plural sign and variations thereof are described in Table 5.It can be seen that there was a great deal of variation in both the TAB and the SIG cheremes.Signs changed position in front of the body, in close conjunction with the context sign (Schlesinger, 1978), and this principle was clearly seen operating here.A general trend was that the formation of the plural marker was less discrete in syntactic context than in isolation.
IV Results of the questionnaire put to Teacher Subjects 1) A single TS had a Diploma in Special Education -the others had only a General Primary Teacher's Diploma.Evans (1982) feels that professional education of teachers of the deaf should provide for instruction in manual communication during a specialised period of study.
2) The period of service at the school ranged from 6 to 12 years.This suggests that all the TS's had been exposed to a signing system which differed from N-H for several years prior to its introduction.It would thus be expected that some confusion with the "old' system would arise, particularly if it is used by the children as their natural sign system.3) The TS's stated they had been taught "the signs" by the more exerienced teachers at the school, as well as from the pupils and by using the text Talking to the £><?a/(Nieder-Heitmann 1980).It appears that in-service training is the present mode of teacher instruction.
All the TS's and the school principal acknowledge the variability in the signs used and cite the following reasons: (a) the recent change in the sign system (b) the fact that natural sign is still used by the older pupils who "do not understand the new signs" | (c) the N-H system is in its "first phase" of development and is limited., DISCUSSION ' This study serves to illustrate the difficulty experienced (by hearing educators, in learning a prescribed manual code.The results obtained are further confirmed by Du Plessis (1985) who observed similar variation in the signing of the N-H code by teachers in several schools for the black deaf.The explanations given to him by the teachers as to why their signing was inaccurate, are similar to those given by the TS's in this study.His subjects believed that:- The manual (Talking to the Deaf) was obsolete, the varied groups using signs in the Republic were not consulted when it was compiled, and that the signs are probably based on those used by whites.The children are confused by the introduction of 'new' signs, andit is not a bona fide sign language and is unfit to use for communication.As a manual code, designed to teach the syntax of spoken Tswana, the N-H code appears to have few attributes of the more popular codes, namely:-to supplement already existing signs and to increase the input to the child of vocabulary and morphological markers, as well as other structural elements (Gustason 1980).

The South African Journal of Communication Disorders, Vo 33, 1986
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2012) Tswana soos gebruik deur sewe onderwysers is bestudeer, asook die konstantheid van die onderwyser se vermoe om leksikale items te kodeer.Resultate dui op die afwesigheid van voorvoegselgebare, onkonstantheid van leksikale gebare en baie variasie onder onderwysers t. o. v. die gebare wat hulle gebruik.Die opvoedkundige en navorsingsimplikasies word bespreek.^ Ο SASHA 1986 77^ South African Journal of Communication Disorders, Vol 33, 1986 uced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (da -fhe Use of Signs and the Coding of Prefix Markers by Teachers at a School for the Deaf 65 South African Journal of Communication Disorders, Vol.33, Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2012) n>« nH the Coding of Prefix Markers by Teachers at a School for the Deaf Use of Sign s anu 67 13V • t on of the variations with DEZ, TAB and SIG formations of the lexical items used by the Teacher Subjects as compared to f

Table 1
It can be seen from both Table1 and Table 2that consistency i n signing between the TS's is minimal.Only for the nouns "moruti" and "mollo" is there some overlap, where two TS's used the same variation.Other variations are used exclusively by each TS however, many of the variations are minimal, differing in a single chereme.It can be noted from Table2that a large percentage of signed nouns used are variations of the N-H signs (X80%).