Exploring British Sign Language via Systemic Functional Linguistics

One of many natural sign languages in use around the world British Sign Language (BSL) operates as a fully-fledged semiotic system in the visual-spatial modality through the simultaneous use of embodied articulators. Filling a gap in current research this book investigates visual-spatial communications from a functional perspective.<br/>Presenting a description and analysis of BSL from the perspective of Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics Luke A. Rudge explores how BSL users make meaning from three different yet interrelated perspectives: <br/>- How exchanges of information are managed at a social level (the interpersonal metafunction)<br/>- How experience is encoded in the language (the experiential metafunction)<br/>- How communications are organised into coherent parts and wholes (the textual metafunction) <br/>Examining these perspectives both separately and together <i>Exploring British Sign Language via Systemic Functional Linguistics</i> places them within the context of current observations in sign linguistics providing a complementary viewpoint on how visual-spatial communications may be understood as social semiosis.