Japanese Sign Language
Encyclopedia
, also known by the acronym "JSL", is the dominant sign language
in Japan
.
and the deaf community before the Edo period
. In 1862, the Tokugawa shogunate
dispatched envoys to various European schools for the deaf. The first school for the deaf was not established until 1878 in Kyōto
.
It was not until 1948 that deaf children were required to attend school to receive a formal education.
In the second half of the 20th century, a subtle cultural change in views about the Deaf in Japan evolved. The long-standing concept that "deaf" only means "people who can't hear" emphasized a physical impairment as part of a biomedical disease model; however, this was gradually replaced by a slightly different paradigm. "Deaf people" were more often identified as "people who use Japanese sign language." In other words, the biomedical disability model began slowly to be displaced by a social-cultural or JSL paradigm.
The Japanese Federation of the Deaf
has worked with slow success in efforts to enhance communication opportunities for Japanese whose primary language is JSL.
The changing status of JSL and the Deaf in Japan is a slow process; but there are highlights. For example, JSL has an advocate among the Imperial family. Kiko, Princess Akishino has studied JSL and is a trained sign language interpreter. She attends the "Sign Language Speech Contest for High School Students" held in every August, and "Praising Mothers Raising Children with Hearing Impairments" in every December. In October 2008, she participated in the "38th National Deaf Women's Conference." She also signs in informal Deaf gatherings.
In 2010, the Deaf community is organizing to support passage of the proposed "Sign Language Law."
In 2006, the Japanese government amended the "Supporting Independence of People with Disabilities Act." The new language in the law encourages local governments to increase the number and use of JSL interpreters.
, negation
, and grammatical particles. Signs consist not just of a manual gesture, but also (pronouncing a standard Japanese word with or without making a sound). The same sign may assume one of two different but semantically related
meanings, as for example in "home" and "house", according to its mouthing
. Another indispensable part of many signs is facial expression.
In addition to signs and their grammar, JSL is augmented by , a form of fingerspelling
, which was introduced from the United States
in the early part of the twentieth century, but is used less often than in American Sign Language
. Each yubimoji corresponds to a kana
, as illustrated by the JSL syllabary
). Fingerspelling is used mostly for foreign words, last names, and unusual words. is used to cover situations where existing signs are not sufficient.
Because, like the standard Japanese
from which it partly derives, JSL is strongly influenced by the complex Japanese writing system
, it dedicates particular attention to the written language and includes elements specifically designed to express kanji
in signs. For either conciseness or disambiguation, particular signs are associated with certain commonly used kanji, place names, and sometimes surnames. (tracing kanji in the air) is also sometimes used for last names or place names, just as it is in spoken Japanese.
and Manually Signed Japanese
. Both of these are signed forms of the Japanese language
. The first is used between non-native signers, and the latter is sometimes used in schools for the deaf. However, up to 2002, most Japanese schools for the deaf emphasized oral education, i.e. teaching through lip-reading. Even now, at least officially, JSL is not taught. It has been only a decade since the official school ban on the use of JSL was lifted.
The sign languages of Korea
and Taiwan
share some signs with JSL, perhaps due to cultural transfer during the period of Japanese occupation.
The highly acclaimed 2006 Alejandro González Iñárritu
-directed multiple Academy Award-nominated film Babel also featured JSL as a significant element of the plot. Rinko Kikuchi
received a Best Supporting Actress
Nomination for her signing role in this film.
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
History
Little is known about sign languageSign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
and the deaf community before the Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
. In 1862, the Tokugawa shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
dispatched envoys to various European schools for the deaf. The first school for the deaf was not established until 1878 in Kyōto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
.
It was not until 1948 that deaf children were required to attend school to receive a formal education.
In the second half of the 20th century, a subtle cultural change in views about the Deaf in Japan evolved. The long-standing concept that "deaf" only means "people who can't hear" emphasized a physical impairment as part of a biomedical disease model; however, this was gradually replaced by a slightly different paradigm. "Deaf people" were more often identified as "people who use Japanese sign language." In other words, the biomedical disability model began slowly to be displaced by a social-cultural or JSL paradigm.
The Japanese Federation of the Deaf
Japanese Federation of the Deaf
The is the national organization of the Deaf in Japan. JFD is also a member organization of the World Federation of the Deaf.The JFD supports Deaf culture in Japan and works to revise laws that prevent the Deaf in Japan from participating in various professions and activities...
has worked with slow success in efforts to enhance communication opportunities for Japanese whose primary language is JSL.
The changing status of JSL and the Deaf in Japan is a slow process; but there are highlights. For example, JSL has an advocate among the Imperial family. Kiko, Princess Akishino has studied JSL and is a trained sign language interpreter. She attends the "Sign Language Speech Contest for High School Students" held in every August, and "Praising Mothers Raising Children with Hearing Impairments" in every December. In October 2008, she participated in the "38th National Deaf Women's Conference." She also signs in informal Deaf gatherings.
In 2010, the Deaf community is organizing to support passage of the proposed "Sign Language Law."
Japanese Sign Language interpreters
The slow integration of JSL within the context of Japanese culture has been accompanied by an expansion of the numbers of sign language interpreters:- 1991 — Japanese Association of Sign Language Interpreters (JASLI) established
- 1997 — Ethics code of the Sign Language Interpreters established by JASLI
- 2002 — Japanese Federation of the Deaf and the National Research Association for Sign Language Interpretation established the National Training Institution of Sign Language
In 2006, the Japanese government amended the "Supporting Independence of People with Disabilities Act." The new language in the law encourages local governments to increase the number and use of JSL interpreters.
Elements of Japanese Sign Language (JSL)
As in other sign languages, JSL (usually called simply 手話 shuwa, "hand talk") consists of words, or signs, and the grammar with which they are put together. JSL signs may be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or any other part of a sentence, including suffixes indicating tenseGrammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, negation
Negation
In logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
, and grammatical particles. Signs consist not just of a manual gesture, but also (pronouncing a standard Japanese word with or without making a sound). The same sign may assume one of two different but semantically related
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
meanings, as for example in "home" and "house", according to its mouthing
Mouthing
In sign language, mouthing is the production of visual syllables with the mouth while signing. Although not present in all sign languages, and sometimes not in signers at all levels of education, where it does occur it may be an essential element of a sign, distinguishing signs which would...
. Another indispensable part of many signs is facial expression.
Fingerspelling
Fingerspelling is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets , have often been used in deaf education, and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages around the world...
, which was introduced from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the early part of the twentieth century, but is used less often than in American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
. Each yubimoji corresponds to a kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
, as illustrated by the JSL syllabary
Japanese Sign Language syllabary
The is a system of manual kana used as part of Japanese Sign Language . It is a signary of 45 signs and 4 diacritics representing the phonetic syllables of the Japanese language. Signs are distinguished both in the direction they point, and in whether the palm faces the viewer or the signer...
). Fingerspelling is used mostly for foreign words, last names, and unusual words. is used to cover situations where existing signs are not sufficient.
Because, like the standard Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
from which it partly derives, JSL is strongly influenced by the complex Japanese writing system
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...
, it dedicates particular attention to the written language and includes elements specifically designed to express kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
in signs. For either conciseness or disambiguation, particular signs are associated with certain commonly used kanji, place names, and sometimes surnames. (tracing kanji in the air) is also sometimes used for last names or place names, just as it is in spoken Japanese.
Other sign languages in use in Japan
Besides JSL there are also Pidgin Signed JapaneseContact Sign
A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...
and Manually Signed Japanese
Manually Coded Language
Manually coded languages are representations of spoken languages in a gestural-visual form; that is, "sign language" versions of spoken languages...
. Both of these are signed forms of the Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. The first is used between non-native signers, and the latter is sometimes used in schools for the deaf. However, up to 2002, most Japanese schools for the deaf emphasized oral education, i.e. teaching through lip-reading. Even now, at least officially, JSL is not taught. It has been only a decade since the official school ban on the use of JSL was lifted.
The sign languages of Korea
Korean Sign Language
Korean Sign Language or KSL is the deaf sign language of Korea.The beginnings of KSL date from 1889.The first primary school for deaf children, opened in 1908, used KSL....
and Taiwan
Taiwanese Sign Language
Taiwanese Sign Language or TSL is the deaf sign language most commonly used in Taiwan.-History:The beginnings of Taiwan Sign Language date from 1895.The origins of TSL developed from Japanese Sign Language during Japanese rule...
share some signs with JSL, perhaps due to cultural transfer during the period of Japanese occupation.
Diffusion of JSL among the hearing
Interest in sign language among the hearing population of Japan has been increasing, with numerous books now published targeting the hearing population, a weekly TV program teaching JSL, and the increasing availability of night school classes for the hearing to learn JSL. There have been several TV dramas, including Hoshi no Kinka (1995), in which signing has been a significant part of the plot, and sign language dramas are now a minor genre on Japanese TV.The highly acclaimed 2006 Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu is a Mexican film director.González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the DGA of America for Best Director. He is also the first and only Mexican born director to have won the Prix de la mise en scene...
-directed multiple Academy Award-nominated film Babel also featured JSL as a significant element of the plot. Rinko Kikuchi
Rinko Kikuchi
, born , January 6, 1981, is a Japanese actress. Kikuchi is the first Japanese actress to be nominated for an Academy Award in 50 years. She is currently Japan's only living female Academy Award nominee in acting categories...
received a Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
Nomination for her signing role in this film.
Use in films and television
(2010) http://www.mbs.jp/h-hostes/- Only You Can Hear MeCalling You (anthology)is a Japanese fictional short story collection written by Otsu-ichi and published on May 31, 2001 by Kadokawa Shoten. All three stories in Calling You are stories focused on unusual friendships with a supernatural twist. In December 2003, a manga adaptation written and illustrated by Setsuri...
{君にしか聞こえない} [Kimi Ni Shika Kikoenai] (2007) - Babel (2006)
- One Missed Call: FinalOne Missed Call: FinalOne Missed Call: Final is the 3rd film of the One Missed Call franchise, released in 2006.-Plot:Emiri, a timid high school girl, is bullied mercilessly by her classmates, but when her friend, Asuka, stands up for her, Asuka becomes the target of the bullying instead. Emiri, not wanting to be...
(2006) (2004) (2000) (1999) (1997–2001) (1995) (1995)
External links
- Japanese Association of Sign Linguistics (JASL)
- 手話教室 (online JSL lessons and dictionary, in Japanese)
- Online JSL dictionaries
- Kyoto Prefectural Education Center Website with explanations in English