I’ve come across a thesis written by a student at the Department of English, Lancaster University for her MA degree. Her topic was the influence of British Sign Language (BSL) on the style of english written by BSL users. She called this deaf english.

Her argument was that BSL has a profound effect on the style of english written by BSL users and used various sources to back up her points, such as emails from a closed mailing list Deaf-UK, and a blog called Fintan’s Ramblings. For Deaf-UK, she approached the list owner for “permission” which she got, but never went on to contact the original authors for permission. She analysed their writings and quoted them at length in her research. Many of the authors were none the wiser.

The same tactic was employed with Fintan’s blog – she took a lot of examples from his blog, without his knowledge, and made the assumption that he is a BSL user when he is not at the time. If she had contacted him, letting him know what she wanted to do, she’d have discovered that he is not a BSL user (although he is about to learn BSL) and would appease Fintan for the respect of making him aware of her work.

So a critical amount of her examples of Fintan’s writings to support her notion that Fintan’s writings have a strong BSL influence due to his style of English is shot right out when Fintan is not a BSL user. Ooops.

What about the rest of her research? Well, she “anoynmised” people in the quotes from the mailing list but I still could identify them by searching a text string in my email client. That’s anonymousity shot out of the window. Oops.

With that aside, what about her arguments? Does it hold water? Not in my opinion. The examples she cited – I often write like that, especially when I’m writing a casual email rather than a professional document. I suspect its true for a lot of people – their english is more casual when emailing people they are comfortable with. She never mentioned this.

BSL users are not always people who have signed from birth and some grew up with English only and learnt BSL later. Does that mean their style of english suddenly change to “deaf english”? I don’t know, I doubt it, but she never considered it.

There are many deaf people with only English as their language, and those who use both. The former has a lot of examples of “deaf english influenced by BSL” and I’ve seen the latter group with perfect english with no “influence of BSL”.

Here are few of her examples she used to back up her points…

The following writers seem to use the verb in the first clause in the standard way, but leave out the copula from the second clause (the relevant areas are bolded):

…he will be base in London on project which funded from the council.
…we have returned back to the UK and settling down well!

Above: I’ve made mistakes like that. I’m not a BSL user.

Below, she pointed out the use of have/has/had is consistent within deaf english by BSL users. Well, I do it too, I suspect my blog is full of it. Fintan is the same and he’s not a BSL user. So why do we non-BSL users do it? Well, it is in a large part due to us not hearing every word in spoken english. Have/has/had all sound identical to our deafened ears in running speech. I personally do not make any distinctions of have/has/had when I’m listening to people.

The theme is similar throughout her thesis with the usage of of/the/for/with/be/becoming/become In spoken english, many of these words are missing to my ears unless the speaker is extremely good and familiar to me. To be fair to the student, becoming is not a word I would make a mistake on very much as a result of my being deaf, so that one is perhap unique to BSL users, as a result of no equivalent of it in BSL (or so I’m led to believe in the thesis – correct me if she and I are wrong).

The findings on modals are not perhaps as clear or suggestive of BSL influence as those for copulas, but one consistent feature is the non-standard use of have, has, and had, even where most other tense and verb agreements match:

…I am writing to inform you all the members that I has been neglecting of the policy regarding to copyright issues…
…Anne have sent an email saying that nokia is about 359 pounds.

I’m not going to cite more examples or I’m going to be guilty as her in research ethics by pulling in more quotes written by people. I hope the few quotes I’ve put in above amounts to fair use.

So, if you’re going to do some research, take a course in research ethics, and I think the Department of English at Lancaster university need to pay more attention to their students conducting research in a proper scientific manner as it seems to me that the student either not have had sufficient guidance and/or training in ethics or she ignored them – I suspect its the former as she does come across as a nice person, but didn’t realise the consequences of her work – one of the people studied is now embarrassed about the style of writing he/she is using and is put off, despite her assurances otherwise.

The excuse she used is that the examples are on the internet and therefore in the public domain – well that is not true. The contents of emails remains the property of the author, and a mailing list owner do not have the right to act on the author’s behalf. Similarily, blogs, many are copyrighted, and if they are not, it not only polite to ask for permission but gives respect to the guinea pigs.

No body likes to be under the microscope, certainly not unwittingly and without the respect of consideration for their feelings.

If anyone want to research on my site, drop me a note before doing it. I’m for research, but only if it’s done right!

With severe flooding in the north Midlands and the pseudo “north of England” that is South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, I was sent on a merry go round before returning back to square one by clueless railways staff.

“Hello, I am a Customer Assistant Annoyer, how can I help inconvience you?”.

I had arrived at Kings Cross intending to go home tonight – wary of the looming disaster that will cripple the country for a few hours because all eyes turns to the rolling news on people being trapped in offices and cars. It is this wariness that I figured I’d best get the train earlier rather than later.

On arrivng at Kings Chaos station, one can only be amazed that the fire regulations permit these many individuals interlocked with suitcases and tickets inside the station. I made a bee-line for St. Pancras after noticing half the station was “queuing” either at the information desk or the ticket sales.

I intended to do a reverse trip of what I did last September – London to Derby on the Midland Mainline, Derby to Newcastle on Virgin. No good. All trains north of Derby are sitting pretty in their stations while some probably look like a log of poo surrounded by brown waters from the air.

Midland Mainline staff tells me that GNER has put on a bus service between Bedford and Sandy and that GNER are running from Sandy, so all I need to do is hop on a train to Bedford and wait for a bus there. At the station a few of us were waiting for that bus.

That familiar realisation of the bus not going to materialise at all was confirmed by the extremely helpful and patient Bedford station master after ringing around trying to get reliable information.

As I was waiting for the train back to London, I was advised by another staff to continue up the line for Nottingham instead. “But where do I go from there? Oh just take a local train service to the East Coast Mainline or Sheffield from Nottingham”. Yeah right(!). That inspires a great deal of confidence in me.

A Midland Mainline train conductor then gave me short shriff after inspecting my ticket by just saying “NO.” No what, I asked? “You can’t go to London on this ticket, you want to go to Newcastle”. I am going to Newcastle! I think she must have thought I was retarded and sighed, gave me back my tickets and walked off chasing other customers.

On returning to London, my good mam has texted me to say that GNER are running trains again. Sure enough there was one leaving. However, the whole station and their suitcase wants to get on it. I sighed and ate a Mars Bars while they stampede onto the train. I couldn’t believe that many could fit onto one train.

People watching is a great tool in playing in today’s world. In that time, I observed that the vast majority were not going into the First Class carriages. Those that were suits with no luggage, clutching a London newspaper. These people do not travel first class normally and know the tricks of the trade. I followed them and found myself a nice comfy First Class seat. Those who were forced to stand were also offered a free upgrade to First Class and the ticket conductor allowed us to remain there.

Most of the suits got off an hour later, virtually leaving the whole carriage to myself for my whole journey. Bliss! On disembarking at Newcastle, I could see the “poor” class were squashed up like cattle and clearly a little bit crowded.

That gave me a nice warm feeling and a big smile.

So, big thanks to GNER despite their massive disruption – it wasn’t their fault, they can’t be responsible for floods.

First Capital Connect Staff at Bedford – very patient and kept a potentially fissile situation under control.

Midland Mainline – bloody useless for sending me on a trip to Bedford for a ghost bus and griff for trying to get back to London, and pretty dirty trains both way. No wonder you guys lost the contract.