Taboo in Sign Languages

Abstract

Taboo topics in deaf communities include the usual ones found in spoken languages, as well as ones particular to deaf experiences, both in how deaf people relate to hearing people and how deaf people interact with other deaf people. Attention to these topics can help linguists understand better the consequences of field method choices and lead them to adopt better ones. Taboo expressions in American Sign Language are innovative regarding the linguistic structures they play with. This creativity is evident across the grammar in non-taboo expressions, but seems to revel in profane ones. When it comes to the syntax, however, certain types of structures occur in taboo expressions that are all but absent elsewhere, showing grammatical possibilities that might have gone unnoticed without attention to taboo. Taboo expressions are innovative, as well, in how they respond to changing culture, where lexical items that are incoherent with community sensibilities are 'corrected'.