ABSTRACT
At the beginning of this chapter we saw how variation could be found at various levels, and that it could be related to social factors. One factor which appeared to be particularly important was formality/informality of setting, and this led to consideration of whether there was diglossia in the British deaf community, with an ‘H’ variety used in formal settings, and an ‘L’ variety used in informal settings. Different varieties in different settings were found, with English structure clearly influencing the formal variety, and the visual medium more obviously exploited in the informal variety. It was then suggested that the idea of two separate varieties should be modified by postulating a linguistic continuum, where people's range of competence as well as the setting would influence their sign language usage. It was also suggested that the idea of a linear continuum from BSL to English was probably an over-simplification, and that linguistic factors other than just approximation to English should be considered. Problems arising from the use of the term ‘pidgin’ were then discussed, and a further idea was then considered: that BSL might be a creole. Support was found for this, both on linguistic and social grounds, but the idea that there might be a post-creole continuum was rejected. Instead, a model involving variation within intersecting circles was proposed, as in Figure 2 (p. 149).
