Like all sciences, linguistics uses its own words to describe features of language. This presentation will use terms from linguistics that are useful for thinking about BSL. We will explain the linguistic terms needed to talk about BSL, in each section here. Although linguistic terminology is useful, the important thing is to understand the ideas behind the terms. It is also important to understand that linguistic terminology and linguistic ideas will change over time as we learn more about sign languages. This is a natural process and we need to accept that ways of thinking about sign languages and the words we use to describe them will change. Ideas that we present here may be different from ideas that showed our understanding of BSL ten years ago. Perhaps in ten years time, as we learn more about BSL, some of the ideas will change again.
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