Common Misconceptions About Sign Language
Sign languages are the same all over the world.
This is wrong! Each country has a unique sign language with its own vocabulary and grammar. It is not so easy for the deaf people from different countries to understand one other's sign languages. If a hearer learns sign language in a specific country, they cannot easily understand the sign language in another country and they must learn the other sign language of that country as well. Even within a country, sign language can vary from region to region (Dikyuva & Zeshan 2008).
Sign language is not a complete and fully operational language. It's just a combination of pantomime or gestures, and it has no idiosyncratic grammar.
This is also wrong! Sign languages are complete languages. Anything expressed in the spoken language can also be expressed in sign language. You can talk about abstract thoughts, the past, what might happen when you do something, and you can even come up with words for new things you want to talk about. It is true that Turkish Sign Language does not have a word for everything, but this is true for every language, voice or sign as well. No language has a word for everything that can be thought. What matters is that a language can generate or derive new words for things when necessary. Sign languages can do this just as vocal languages can. In addition, just as there are no words for some Turkish expressions in Turkish Sign Language, some Turkish Sign Language signs do not have words in Turkish either. In both cases, the meaning of the word is expressed in a sentence, or people create a new word for the general concept.
Apart from that, it is not true that sign languages have no set of grammar rules. All sign languages have detailed and difficult grammar and one of the objectives of this course is that you learn Turkish Sign Language grammar. Hand gestures, head movement, and facial expressions used by the hearing people are also used in Sign Language. However they are used in a very different way and are only a very small part of a sign language. Sign language is much more than a combination of pantomime and gestures. There are many publications explaining the grammatical structure of Turkish Sign Language. Remember that sign language grammar should be learned in the same way as the grammar of another language is learned (Dikyuva & Zeshan 2008).
Apart from that, it is not true that sign languages have no set of grammar rules. All sign languages have detailed and difficult grammar and one of the objectives of this course is that you learn Turkish Sign Language grammar. Hand gestures, head movement, and facial expressions used by the hearing people are also used in Sign Language. However they are used in a very different way and are only a very small part of a sign language. Sign language is much more than a combination of pantomime and gestures. There are many publications explaining the grammatical structure of Turkish Sign Language. Remember that sign language grammar should be learned in the same way as the grammar of another language is learned (Dikyuva & Zeshan 2008).
Sign language depends upon the spoken language. It is the demonstration of the spoken language by the hands.
This is also wrong! Every sign language in every country has its own unique structure. This structure is quite different from the structure of the vocal language spoken in the same country. Sign Language is in no way dependent upon the spoken language and is not the display of the spoken language by hands. Many of the Turkish Sign Language structures that you will learn in this course are different from Turkish language and during the course we will explain what these differences are. When you pay special attention to these differences, you will also find out some of the reasons why deaf people in Turkey have difficulty learning Turkish, because the Turkish Sign Language they use for communication is structurally quite different from Turkish (Dikyuva & Zeshan 2008).
Sign language is just the language of the hands.
This is wrong! It is true that hands are significant in any of the sign languages, but there are other things much more important than just hands in signing. You also make sense with your face and your whole body, and these are also important elements in sign language. If you cannot learn to use your eyes, face, head, and body, you will not be able to sign and express yourself properly. This is very important not only for the meaning but also for the grammar. For example, if you are signing a negative sentence, you will need to lift your head back most of the time. If you are signing a question, sometimes you have to nod and frown. If your face always stays the same, your sentences are not complete (Dikyuva&Zeshan 2008).
Sign language was invented by other people so as to help the deaf people.
This is also wrong! Sign languages have naturally developed wherever deaf people meet. No one has invented it for the deaf people, but deaf people have created sign languages themselves. After schools and federations for the deaf were established in many countries, deaf people began to meet regularly. After that, sign languages started to develop spontaneously, because deaf people were communicating with each other. We don't know much about the early history of sign language because sign language was not written or recorded in a way. This is just like vocal languages without a writing system. Some sign languages have a history of hundreds or even thousands of years. In Turkey, deaf and hearing people used sign language 500 years ago in the Ottoman palaces in the 1500s. These were written down by people who travelled to Turkey during those times. But sign language may have a much longer history than that, we just do not know the whole history. What we do know is that deaf people created their own language, not others (Dikyuva & Zeshan 2008).