Souvenir Press. 1997. 128 pages. ISBN: 0285650831
This lively introduction to the principles and grammar of British Sign Language has proved the most popular resource book for students. The reader is encouraged not to think in terms of individual words but to revel in this rich language - a language that involves the whole person. Signs are grouped according to type. It also shows how facial expressions, fluid hand and finger movements and placements are used and combined.
Interest in British Sign Language (BSL) is growing at a fantastic rate, and classes for hearing people are mushrooming all over the country. This lively introduction to the principles of the language and its vocabulary will therefore be widely welcomed, giving a vivid insight into a form of communication that can appear difficult for those whose first language is English. As the author takes pains to stress, BSL is not a mimed version of English. Equally rich and complex, it is visual, gestural and spatial, able to convey information and subtleties of meaning as fluently as any spoken language. Once learners have ceased to think in terms of individual words, they will come to revel in a language that involves the whole person: facial and bodily expression and movement, eye contact and gaze, lip pattern and the fluid movements of the signs themselves, all combining to form an integrated language system with rules of its own. Using detailed drawings throughout to illustrate nuances of meaning, the author groups the signs according to type, introducing each theme and showing how facial expressions, hand and finger movements and placements are used and combined to vary the sense of what is being communicated.