Delivered by Prof. Dany Adone at The Northern Institute of Charles Darwin University on the 11th September, 2018.
In this paper, Prof Dany discusses the case of an Indigenous alternate signing system that we call Arnhem Land Signed Lingua Franca (henceforth ALSLF) in Adone et al. (2018). This signing system coexists with primary and alternate Indigenous sign languages in Arnhem Land and forms part of a continuum (Adone et al. forthcoming).
In the first part of the paper, she takes a close look at the sociolinguistic background of this alternate signing system and argues that it functions as a lingua franca, sharing similarities with various lingua francas found elsewhere in the world. She also argues that it reflects the cultural practices of this bimodal bilingual region. In the second part of the paper, Prof. Adone focuses on some key structural features of ALSLF. Finally, she concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings.