BSL Glossary
Vocabulary – BSL is a visual spatial language. The vocabulary of BSL can be divided into signs that are part of the established lexicon and signs that are part of the productive lexicon.
Established Lexicon – A established lexicon is an established sign, where the form or meaning can’t easily be changed, they are often to referred to as ‘fixed’ signs. These core signs are at the heart of the language and are usually found in a dictionary. These are signs that can be understood out of context and are often accompanied by English mouth pattern.
Productive Lexicon – are used these to describe the appearance, movement, or locations of an object. For each productive sign, the persons hand shape tells us something about the object for example movement and location, its shape, or its appearance. They don’t often use an English mouth pattern.
Visual Motivation (Signature call this Visualisation) – In BSL there are many links between the form of the sign (how it looks) and the meaning, including the use of space for spatial relationships. Visually motivated signs help the person receiving to fully visualise and understood the information being shared.
Fingerspelling – The BSL 2 hand fingerspelling alphabet is the sign equivalent of the alphabet, each letter is signed using 2 hands. Fingerspelling is used for people’s names and place names (i.e., Towns, Cities etc).
Pace – For the BSL GCSE a moderate signing pace is defined as accurate articulation of signs at a slower than normal conversational pace.
BSL Signs, sentences, and texts – A BSL sign is any singular sign that you use. A Sentence is a group of signs, put together in the correct order at an appropriate pace. Text is a group of sentences signed at a moderate pace/normal conversational pace.
BSL Grammar – BSL has its own grammatical structure, the sentences used within BSL is unlike written or spoken English, it has its own structure and word/sign order.
Standard BSL – ‘Standard’ BSL (using signs and grammar that are seen to be understood) as seen on BSL Zone or BBC See Hear, regional variations can be used so long as the requirements are fully met.
Classifiers – A British Sign Language (BSL) classifier is a linguistic feature used in sign languages, including BSL, to convey information about the size, shape, movement, or location of objects, people, or actions. Classifiers are handshapes or handshapes combined with specific movements that represent particular nouns or verbs in the signer’s environment. In BSL, classifiers are used to provide more detailed descriptions and convey visual information.
Whole entity classifiers – This describes the overall shape of an object.
Handling/instrumental classifiers – Used to show what the signers’ hand would look like when they pick something up and handle something.
Limb classifiers – A representation of limbs such as arms or legs
Extension and surface classifiers – This can describe the size and depth of a person. (i.e thin person)
Modification of nouns or verbs – refers to the process of adding additional information to convey more specific meanings. These modifications can be done using specific handshapes, movements, or facial expressions.
Adjectivals (Signature call this aspect) – adjectivals refer to signs or constructions used to express adjectives or qualities that describe or modify nouns. Adjectivals play an important role in BSL by providing additional information about the size, shape or qualities of the nouns being referred to. Adjectivals in BSL are not limited to single signs but can also be expressed through combinations of signs, classifiers, and facial expressions.
Adverbials – adverbials are used to modify the movement and size of a sign. They provide information on time, duration, and manner of the activity.
Verbs:
Plain Verbs – Verbs that don’t include information about who is doing an action.
Indicating/agreement/transfer – these verbs are expressed through specific linguistic features and sign constructions. These verbs are used to indicate actions related to agreeing with someone or transferring something from one person to another.
Depicting (spatial) – these verbs use your handshape to represent what is being signed, signs in BSL change depending on the subject, for example the sign for opening a door would be different to opening a letter.
Existential – Indicates that a person, animal, object, or vehicle exists at that moment in time. Negative existential verbs indicate it does not exist.
Numbers in verbs – indication of how many objects are part of a verb, for example how many people are preforming an action.
Numeral incorporation – handshape that refers to an quantity (age/amount/time).
List buoys – Signs that are used to show a number of objects, whilst providing more information on the object. For example, signing 4 people in your family, father, mother, brother, sister, where non-dominant hand maintains handshape of 4 whilst dominant hand is used to enumerate the family members.
Ordinals – Signs that are used to show ordering, for example 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
Referencing:
Personal or possessive pronominals – signing about yourself (I, me, my)
Reflexive – signing about a previously named noun or pronominal – ourselves, myself
Enumerative – always a sign to distinguish between a meaning such as ‘each of them or all of them.
Negation – is used to tell us what is not true.
Negative suffixation – refers to the process of adding a suffix or a specific handshape to a sign to convey a negative meaning. It allows signers to express negation or the absence of a particular concept or action.
Clause Structures:
Declaratives/statements – is a signed sentence that makes a statement, provides a fact, or offers an explanation.
Affirmation – a declaration of confirmation of truth or validity (nodding head to agree)
Interrogatives – are used to ask questions and seek information. They allow signers to inquire about various aspects of a topic or engage in conversation.
Prepositions and conjunctions: an important linguistic element used to express relationships between words, phrases, and clauses.
Complex clause structures:
Verbless clauses and ellipsis – sentence structures that convey meaning without the use of a specific verb. Instead, these clauses rely on other linguistic elements to convey the intended message.
Coordination or subordination – Links together two or more elements for example nouns and verbs. Subordination links multiple sentences together to show that one part is more important than another.
Pragmatics:
Constructed action – used to describe what different people are doing and the action they are taking using classifier handshapes.
Role Shift – where a person takes on the role of one or more people in a narrative and describes what each of these people are doing and the actions they are taking.
Focus and Emphasis:
Doubling – refers to a grammatical feature where a sign is repeated in quick succession to indicate intensity, emphasis, or duration. It is commonly used to add emphasis to a particular word or concept in a sentence.
Topicalisation – modification of an order of signs in a sentence to change the prominence of different elements.
Topic/comment – the topic relates to what the signers is signing about, the comment refers to observations on that topic.
A BSL version of the terms used within the Department for Education GCSE Consultation document can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCG-tgep9c8
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