Language And Society How Social Factors Influence The...

â€Å"Sociolinguistics studies the relations between language and society: how social factors influence the structure and use of language.† (Victory30, 2014). Language is a living, breathing entity whether is it spoken or signed. For the purposes of this project I will be focusing on American Sign Language or ASL. One aspect of ASL is initialization which seems to be very subjective. There are many social and cultural factors that influence this aspect. I had the privilege of interviewing Paul Simmons, and during our time discussing initialized signs, we covered the history of initializing in ASL, why some signs accept initialization while others do not, and using initialization in educational and career fields. Paul Simmons is an ADA†¦show more content†¦Paul has been involved in several Deaf organizations in different positions both here in the United States and Internationally (Simmons, 2017). An acquaintance helped put me in touch with Paul and we set up a one-on-one interview in sign language at Starbucks. The interview was a bit overwhelming as Paul brought so much experience and knowledge with him. Over the two hours that we conversed, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Paul and gleaning a plethora of fascinating information from him. First of all, I would like to cover what initialization means and how it historically made its way into sign language. Initialized signs use the first fingerspelled letter of a word that corresponds to a specific handshape used in a sign. Some examples are, FAMILY, YELLOW, WATER, and AUNT. In 1817 Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc brought French Sign Language (Manual French) to America and established the American School for the Deaf (ASD). Along with them they brought a large number of initialized signs that stemmed from Abbe’ de L’Epee who was the founder and first director of the Deaf School in Paris. This was a system of â€Å"Methodical Sign, in which the hand shapes of most signs were changed to correspond to the initial letter of their translation in the local oral language, and (in the case of ASL) partly a more recent influence of Manually Coded English† (Wikipedia, 2015). Paul pointed outShow MoreRelatedSocial And Cultural Factors Have A Significant In fluence1680 Words   |  7 Pages Social and cultural factors have a significant influence on the way a child interprets and views language. Language is a form of behaviour, a series of cultural and social practices that should be seen as appropriate (or not appropriate) for a given context (Green 2006). We could describe language as a set of conventions or rules that have been developed over time to provide communication and speech between one another. 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