A Semantic Description of Homosigns in Hausa Sign Language

Homosigns refer to signs with similar linguistics descriptions but also differ in term of meaning. Homosign is one of the form of lexical relation and categorises into two (body and space). This paper aims to fill the gap of scarcity of studies on homosigns in sign languages globally though there is dual nature of signs with identical parameters but different meaning, particularly in a virgin language called Hausa sign language. The paper tries to identify the signs with identical features but different in meaning within the Hausa deaf language. It also illustrates the parameters use in sign production. This paper analyses the sign meaning via the four functional parameters (Handshape, movement, location and orientation). The data of this study were gathered from frequent deaf Joints in five local government areas of Kano state. The two deaf joints were selected from each local government. Five deaf were also selected from each joint irrespective of age, gender and educational status. The data were collected via asking Hausa deaf to demonstrate how some content words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are formed. We analysed a corpus of 50 out of the 100 HSL signs. In addition, video coverage was also used during demonstration for the artist to extract and draw the signs easier. Also, discussion was done with non-deaf persons who are experts on the Hausa sign language, as well as consulted some written documents. Our findings identify that Hausa deaf language (HDL) has signs with the same process of production but different in meaning. It also demonstrates the function of sign parameters (handshape, movement, location and orientation) in sign production. Finally, sign meanings of the illustrated pictures were also analyzed. This study contributes to our understanding of the linguistic structure of HDL and highlights the meaning with identical process but different meaning in Hausa deaf language.