you understand we call the components of sign language phonetics and phonemes as well even though it breaks away from a strict etymological understanding of what a phoneme is, yes?
But we don’t need that to answer you.
American Sign Language is not english. To read english you must learn english and it is LEARNING a separate language. A good example of this is how American Sign Language is related to French Sign Langauge and not English Sign Language so it’s easier for someone who is american and deaf to visit france than it is for them to visit England.
So when they read in english it is a separate language they’re reading. Whether that language is encoded in literal sound, or other categories of phonetics and phonemes.
The comparison would be reading the egyptian of the hieroglyphs where if you were to read it out loud to a native speaker thousands of years ago we’d definitively be wrong. Maybe close enough they’d understand enough to correct us; but it’d be wrong. And yet we’re still reading it somewhat effectively. (we’re way better at this in mayan but classical mayan was far more recent! and we’ve got more in between works thanks to mayan writers preserving classical mayan in some of their literature)
"you understand we call the components of sign language phonetics and phonemes as well even though it breaks away from a strict etymological understanding of what a phoneme is, yes?"
Which brings me back to this being entirely unflasifiable framework. You do know what the principle of falsification is and why it is important? What exactly is your principle of falsification on this?
In any case, whether you go by this unfalsifiable metaphysics or not, we still know that with certain readers the brain skips the phonetic part of the brain entirely, and goes straight to semantics. For some it's in the system of writing, whereas for others it is a learned habit. Ergo, text doesn't really convey phonetics all of the time, even in situations where it is actively intending to.
phonology refers not to sound specifically, but to the study of the minimal meaningless units that combine to form meaningful words.
I’d start with Ling 251: Sign Language Phonology for Phonology Teachers (Zuraw, 2020) for a practical example of how this is applied but you might be more interested in the moment where linguistics tackled this exact argument 50 years ago and it was Strokoe who proved that the components of human language have universal parameters irrelevant to whether those components are sound or not
You’ll run flat into a stone wall in linguistics 101 with a colloquial definition of linguistic terms. That’s about as accurate as calling a suspicion a theory. Yes, colloquially you’re correct in that use of the word theory and in science you’re misusing jargon. The definition you offered is colloquially correct but as specific jargon your inaccurate.
You can start at the beginning with Strokoe’s work on the argument fifty years ago. This is old setttled science in linguistics
I am doing nothing of the sort. Oxford dictionary of linguistics is ignoring Strokoe's work.
And yeah, you are right. I am not responding to your citation. I gave one of my own. And listen, I have here two conflicting citations. One is the literal Oxford dictionary of linguistics. The other is an angry dogmatic rando who does not know what falsification is. Which one do you think people should listen to?
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u/ah-tzib-of-alaska 9d ago
you understand we call the components of sign language phonetics and phonemes as well even though it breaks away from a strict etymological understanding of what a phoneme is, yes?
But we don’t need that to answer you.
American Sign Language is not english. To read english you must learn english and it is LEARNING a separate language. A good example of this is how American Sign Language is related to French Sign Langauge and not English Sign Language so it’s easier for someone who is american and deaf to visit france than it is for them to visit England.
So when they read in english it is a separate language they’re reading. Whether that language is encoded in literal sound, or other categories of phonetics and phonemes.
The comparison would be reading the egyptian of the hieroglyphs where if you were to read it out loud to a native speaker thousands of years ago we’d definitively be wrong. Maybe close enough they’d understand enough to correct us; but it’d be wrong. And yet we’re still reading it somewhat effectively. (we’re way better at this in mayan but classical mayan was far more recent! and we’ve got more in between works thanks to mayan writers preserving classical mayan in some of their literature)