trochee | [lazyweb] Searching a social network for [tact]

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caracola starts a discussion that includes the statement "ASL has no sign for tact". This statement struck me as suspiciously snowclone-ish, and I'm curious if anybody might know about such a sign in ASL.

Some of my friends here might have resources that have more information. Any ideas of where to look? Anybody know the sign?

To complete my jargon and topic list: social networks (how), sign language (what), and snowclones (why)!

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From:

trochee.livejournal.com

You probably already know that I am highly skeptical of the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

I suspect that the Deaf ASL community has a number of concepts around the appropriateness of social interactions. It would be interesting if they divide up that space in a different way than English, but I don't think it would be terribly surprising. But that culture is complicated and fragmented and it would surprise me if there wasn't frequent borrowing from English, the superstrate language for many ASL communities.

From:

xaosenkosmos.livejournal.com

I have yet to meet anyone reasonable and informed who doesn't agree that strong determinism is deader than Sapir and Whorf put together.

Unreasonable: some of these people like S-W, but that's because it pushes their silly little (typically racist) worldview.

Uninformed: well, it's hard to fault journalists. They're like rambunctious little puppies of truth: sometimes their accidentally play too rough, sometimes they totally miss the fact that you didn't actually throw the chew-toy, and sometimes their housetraining is less-than-complete. In any of these cases, they're trying, really they are, they just aren't quite up to understanding that English-speaking Canadians have almost as many words for snow as the other inhabitants of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut do.