‘What’s in a Place-name in the Tibetan Sign Language? Iconicity and the Use of Signed Toponyms among Deaf Signers in Lhasa

Based on four months of anthropological fieldwork with TSL signers, analysis of video recordings and the co-production of video-based TSL language materials, this article offers the first description and analysis of a selection of toponyms, or place names, in the Tibetan Sign Language (TSL). TSL is a recently emerging deaf community sign language used by about 150 to 200 Tibetan signers mainly in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
The article demonstrates that the TSL place name system is driven by a high degree of iconicity, that is, resemblances and similarities between the linguistic signs of place names and their referents. Going beyond the simple and singular conception of iconicity as a ‘form-meaning resemblance’, this article argues that iconicity involves mental mappings and is mediated by social, political and cultural processes (cf. Taub 2012; Thompson et al. 2012; Nonaka 2015). For example, mappings between aspects of embodied experiences and visually perceived features of people, objects and places are discussed. As are more abstract ways, such as when highly valued or religiously worshipped people, items and places are placed higher in the signing space and/or on signers’ bodies.
By comparison with the surrounding languages, only few influences from Tibetan written and spoken place names on TSL place names exist, the main one being their multi- syllabic prosody. There are no calques from Tibetan place names or signs derived from fingerspelling. This is related to low levels of literacy and lack of circulation of Tibetan- language-based software among deaf Tibetans. It also relates to wider language shift to Chinese, prompted in the place name domain by almost exclusive use of Chinese place names for Tibetan places in day-to-day administration and online-map apps.
The article is comparative and highlights not just aspects of the written and spoken language environment and its place names, but also offers first insights into the toponymic system of the Lhasa variety of Chinese Sign Language (LhCSL). This language is in use by Tibetan signers under the age of 30, due to their attendance in the local government deaf school (which uses Chinese, sign supported Chinese and CSL). No influence on TSL place names from the LhCSL toponymic system are evidenced, but there is increasing code-switching to LhCSL place names among TSL-dominant signers, when they interact with LhCSL dominant signers.