Analysing Sign Language Poetry

This new study is a major contribution to sign language study and to literature generally, looking at the complex grammatical, phonological and morphological systems of sign language linguistic structure and their role in sign language poetry and performance. Chapters deal with repetition and rhyme, symmetry and balance, neologisms, ambiguity, themes, metaphor and allusion, poem and performance, and blending English and sign language poetry. Major poetic performances in both BSL and ASL—with emphasis on the work of the deaf poet Dorothy Miles—are analyzed using the tools provided in the book.

This new study is a major contribution to sign language study and to literature generally, looking at the complex grammatical, phonological and morphological systems of sign language linguistic structure and their role in sign language poetry and performance. Chapters deal with repetition and rhyme, symmetry and balance, neologisms, ambiguity, themes, metaphor and allusion, poem and performance, and blending English and sign language poetry. Major poetic performances in both BSL and ASL--with emphasis on the work of the deaf poet Dorothy Miles--are analyzed using the tools provided in the book.

Rachel Sutton-Spence is Lecturer in Deaf Studies at the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol. She researches and teaches on sign language linguistics and the social context of sign languages as well as on sign language poetry. She is the co-author ( with Bencie Woll) of The Linguistics of British Sign Language, which won the British Association of Applied Linguistics award and the Deaf Nation Award in 1999.