Exploring British Sign Language via Systemic Functional Linguistics

Luke A. Rudge is a Visiting Fellow of the Bristol Centre for Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK.

• List of FiguresList of TablesAcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations1. Introducing British Sign Language: A Sociocultural and Linguistic Overview2. Contextualising British Sign Language within a Systemic Functional Framework3. Exploring the Interpersonal Metafunction4. Exploring the Experiential Metafunction5. Exploring the Textual Metafunction6. Combining the Metafunctions: Analysing BSL from Three Perspectives7. Looking Back and Looking ForwardReferencesIndex

A truly impressive contribution to an unfortunately neglected field of study, this volume provides insight into British Sign Language (BSL) from the perspective of functional linguistics. It represents the first major publication to offer a functional description of BSL within Systemic Functional Linguistics. Not only does it provide an important foundation for future work on BSL but also an opening on broader linguistic typological issues and extensions to existing linguistic theory. This is a very important volume for all interested in sign languages and perhaps even more so for anyone working with modes of expression very broadly, including embodied communication.