Learning Chinese Sign Language |
China Power | Society | East Asia
Learning Chinese Sign Language
There are multiple different sign languages – some of which are not easily intelligible to deaf people.
Learning Chinese Sign Language is a bewildering experience. To begin with, Chinese Sign Language (CSL) is in itself best understood as an umbrella term rather than a well-defined language.
You have Signed Chinese, shoushi hanyu, which is one-to-one transcriptions of the written standard Chinese into signs, replete with interpuncation such as signed question marks. Then there is Natural Sign Language, ziran shouyu, the language that is actually spoken between native deaf signers in China. It has syntax and grammar markedly different from Chinese, makes extensive use of abbreviations and, like all natural sign languages, incorporates facial expressions.
Besides these, there are yet other types of CSL described in the academic literature, such as Literary Sign Language (wenfa shouyu) and Society Sign Language (shehui shouyu). All the more confusing is how these terms often seem to overlap or even are used interchangeably.
Since 2018, the government has been actively promoting a type of sign language titled Guojia Tongyong Shouyu, sometimes translated into English as Chinese General Sign Language (CGSL). According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, CGSL can be seen as the sign language equivalent to Standard Mandarin. Having moved away from a standard based on spoken or written Chinese, CGSL incorporates elements from the natural sign languages and thus appears to be less alien to native deaf speakers. While this standardized variety has been described by some Chinese academics as a “natural sign language,” it is, however, uncertain if it is viewed as such by deaf Chinese themselves.
For the prospective learner, there is a surprisingly user-friendly app based on the official CGSL lexicon. There are daily quizzes, signed demonstrations of the words, targeted tests, themed glossaries, and other useful tools for learning. Unfortunately, all of this does not compensate for the staggering lack of lexemes in the dictionary. Basic and commonly used words such as “curious” or “already” are missing.
Sometimes the all too familiar top-down perspective of Chinese officialdom shines through with its clear political priorities: while there is an entry for “Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League,” the arguably far more useful word “weekend” is not listed. Even more striking is how words pertaining to sexuality or “taboo” body parts are missing altogether. For example, how would a sign language interpreter fare at a client’s gynecologist visit when the CGSL has no official terms for a woman’s genitalia?
A couple of years ago, I was myself trying to learn Chinese Sign Language. I began by signing up to an online class, taught for free three nights a week. The teacher, however, was of the old-school, pre-CGSL era. Each lesson he stiffly taught us how to sign Chinese words and characters, without any facial cues and without teaching any grammar. Knowing enough about sign language to recognize that this was not the way deaf Chinese actually speak to each other, I quickly abandoned this approach and figured that the best way would be to befriend native speakers and simply learn from........