Jurnal Deaf 1

Rachel Sutton-Spence
The Role of Sign Language Narratives in

Developing Identity for Deaf Children
Abstract: This article describes the role of sign language narratives

in the development of Deaf identity in children. By analyzing interviews
with British Deaf teachers and other Deaf adults as well as stories told
to children using British Sign Language, we can see the elements of
language and culture that adults believe should be passed on to the next
generation of Deaf people. Deaf children are rarely born into the Deaf
community and usually do not learn sign language from their parents,
but through signed stories they are introduced to linguistic and cultural
traditions present in mainstream British society and in the British Deaf
community. I argue that storytelling in schools by Deaf teachers plays an
essential role in deaf children’s development of identity.
Story telling in an y community is an important way to pass on

linguistic and cultural heritage to the next generation. Signed stories
have long been recognized within Deaf communities as a cornerstone
of Deaf culture in many countries (e.g., Hall 1989; Peters 2000; Ruth-
erford 1993), but there has been remarkably little published on the
rich storytelling heritage of the British Deaf community (see Ladd
2003 for an important exception) and very little indeed on its impor-
tance for deaf children.1
This article considers the types of signed narratives presented to
deaf children in the classroom and identifies elements that Deaf adults
believe should be included to help students develop their personal,
Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 47, No. 3, 2010

Copyright © 2010 Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University
265
266 Journal of Folklore Research Vol. 47, No. 3
linguistic, and social identities. Although the focus here is on the

importance of sign language narratives in the development of Deaf
identity in children, it should be noted that many of the themes—and
their realization—are also important for the development and mainte-
nance of Deaf identity among adult members of the Deaf community.
Indeed, scholars recognize that storytelling and other aspects of signed
folklore are key elements of Deaf cultural life for adults who are already
well established in the community (see Peters 2000 for one of many
examples). Additionally, those Deaf people who join the Deaf com-
munity as adults (perhaps having been deliberately kept in their youth
from meeting other deaf children) need to learn about Deaf cultural
life and Deaf identities. For these adults, too, signed storytelling and
other forms of signed folklore are crucial for enculturation (Hall 1989).
Before proceeding further, readers unfamiliar with Deaf commu-
nities should note that the vast majority of deaf children are born to
hearing families who have no experience of deafness or sign language.
Exposure to sign language rarely occurs before school age and often
not until after the young adult has left school. Most Deaf people are
not automatically members of a Deaf community and do not naturally
acquire knowledge of the Deaf world from their families—the excep-
tions are the very few deaf children born into Deaf families, and it is
not surprising that the social and cultural experiences of these children
are most similar to those of most hearing children. Thus, socialization
and enculturation into a Deaf community are important processes for
Deaf people because they enable the development of Deaf identities.
Breda Carty has suggested that Deaf people comfortable with their
Deaf identity have learned how to embrace deafness as an essential
and positive part of themselves (1994). Additionally, they know how
to recognize and participate in Deaf culture, especially through sign
language, and can interpret the surrounding world in a way that is
compatible with their experience as Deaf people. All Deaf people
need help being socialized into the Deaf community, and they often
find this guidance in Deaf clubs, from Deaf role models or, rarely,
from Deaf teachers.
Deaf clubs are one of the primary sites where Deaf culture is per-
petuated (Ladd 2003; Padden and Humphries 1988). In these clubs,
newcomers to the Deaf community are enculturated by more veteran
members (see also Hall 1989). Additionally, many Deaf people re-
port becoming acquainted with a specific Deaf adult who acted as a
Rachel Sutton-Spence The Role of Sign Language Narratives 267
“Deaf parent” to them when they first joined the Deaf world (Lane,
Hoffmeister, and Bahan 1996). Clive Mason, a leading member of the
British Deaf community who was born into a hearing family, described
to me his experiences of learning from adults outside of school. Us-
ing signs that evoke more than their English rendering can imply,2
Clive described how this old storyteller dramatized an account of his
working life.
When I was sixteen I left school and stayed with an old couple—they were
Deaf. I sat down by the fire and they told me stories that amazed me.
“When I was young I got up at four a.m. Different from you, youngster.
You’re up at six; I was up at four. Off on my horse, with my cap on and
a cigarette in my mouth. I had to clean and feed the horse—my boss’s
horse. You have cars, bus, or taxi. I rode a horse.” He told me wonderful
stories with me sitting in front of the fire. That’s an old British tradition
of passing things on.
Clive’s comment shows the cultural power of language as language. Al-

though personal narratives from the older community members teach
younger members facts that they might not otherwise learn, they also
teach the style of creative language that can be used to deliver these
facts. Clive’s re-creation of the old man’s story, depicting the way he
looked after and rode the horse shows how well his lesson was learned.
The cultural power of this language is also demonstrated at the
other end of the age range, as children with good signing skills pass
these on to less skilled children, again through creativity. Before the
1980s, when residential Deaf schools were the norm, children from
Deaf families often provided the first introduction to the Deaf cultural
world for children coming from hearing families. These residential
schools in Britain rarely employed any signing teachers because deaf
children were expected to use English. The Deaf poet John Wilson
(also from a hearing family) described the experience, at age twelve,
of seeing a girl signing poetry while he was at a residential school for
deaf children:
She signed a simple poem about a tree by the river, blowing in the wind.
Watching it had a very powerful impact on me. I laughed for ages after-
wards. I wasn’t laughing at her but at the delight of seeing her poem. It
was like a slap across the face—the first time I’d ever seen anything so
clear. (Wilson 2006)
John’s experience with poetry until that time had been exclusively in
English. The other deaf girl’s use of language taught him that sign
language has the power to communicate strong emotions, and also
that signed poetry was even possible. It cannot be assumed that deaf
children will naturally find this out, as they grow up surrounded by
English.
Despite the importance of these other sources of creative signed
traditions in educating new members of the community, this article
will focus on the role of signing Deaf teachers in children’s identity
development. It will show the form and content of signed narratives
directed at children that adults in the community judge to be appro-
priate for teaching (see also Sutton-Spence and Ramsey 2010). Deaf
children learn important lessons and values from the stories told in sign
language by Deaf adults. Additionally, they gain a sense of belonging
in the Deaf community. As Donna West (2010) has phrased it, quot-
ing from a deaf child with a Deaf teacher: “We’re the same, I’m Deaf,
you’re Deaf, Huh!” Children also learn their language heritage from
Deaf narratives, which often model good storytelling practices and
appropriate structural and linguistic features such as characterization,
use of space, and creation of highly visual neologisms. In this article,
I consider examples of well-told Deaf stories and outline their value
to Deaf children.
There are many good educational reasons for introducing all chil-
dren to narratives: they are, for instance, key tools for developing the
decontextualized thought required for literacy. In addition, there are
important social reasons for developing narrative skills in children.
For example, narratives teach listeners how to behave according to
community expectations (Wishard Guerra 2008). This is as true for
deaf children as it is for hearing children, but deaf children need to
understand the expectations of both the Deaf and hearing worlds
they will live in. Barbara Kannapell has argued that “one of the goals
of educating deaf children should be harmonious identification with
both Deaf and hearing cultures, but educators should strengthen
the Deaf identity among deaf children first” (1994:47–48). Signed
stories frequently aim for this goal, becoming important sources of
both explicit and implicit information about children’s Deaf cultural
heritage. Skilled use of British Sign Language (BSL) in the stories also
demonstrates to children the rich potential of their language and offers
narrative templates. Learning these narrative skills enables children
to participate in community storytelling after they leave school, thus

perpetuating Deaf heritage.
There are many ways that narratives told by Deaf teachers allow
deaf students to “interpret the surrounding world in a way that is
compatible with [their] experience as a deaf person” (Carty 1994:41).
In my analysis of stories here, I will show how they comment on the
cultural expectations of behavior by Deaf and hearing people, the
importance of accepting one’s deafness, and the value of BSL and
English (in spoken and written forms). Given that so much of this
Deaf enculturation is traditionally shared through storytelling, these
narratives are an integral part of BSL folklore.
My data on Deaf folklore and storytelling are drawn from interviews
and discussions with seven adult members of the British Deaf com-
munity (all aged over forty) drawn from across the United Kingdom.
All interviews were conducted between 2005 and 2009. Additionally,
I comment in some depth on the linguistic and cultural content of
two British Sign Language (BSL) stories for children told by Richard
Carter and Paul Scott.3 Both men are Deaf (Richard grew up with
hearing parents; Paul grew up with Deaf parents), are active members
of the British Deaf community, and are widely recognized as skilled
BSL poets and storytellers. Both have worked as teaching assistants in
Deaf schools. Richard’s story is a fantasy aimed at nine- to eleven-year-
olds. Paul’s is a narrative of personal experience aimed at fourteen- to
sixteen-year-olds. All interviews and discussions were conducted in BSL
and the stories were told in BSL. Translations are my own.
Socio-historical Context of BSL Narratives

It is estimated that approximately 5 percent of deaf children have Deaf
parents (Mitchell and Karchmer 2004). Frequently, these children are
able to acquire sign language and Deaf culture as part of their home
environment. Conversely, approximately 95 percent of deaf children
have hearing parents. Traditionally, most deaf children started their
socialization into Deaf culture upon entering Deaf school, where they
finally met other signers. During the years of strict oralist policies
in Britain (from approximately 1880 to 1980), signing was heavily
proscribed in Deaf schools in favor of speech and lipreading. Deaf
teachers were rarely employed and those few Deaf adults who did
work in schools were usually forbidden to sign to the children, as it
was believed that signing would hinder their acquisition of English.

Consequently, most children had very limited access to signing Deaf
adult role-models and very few opportunities to see Deaf adults telling
BSL stories. However, outside the classroom signing continued among
the children, often clandestinely. Deaf children learned sign language
(and what it meant to be Deaf) from each other, and especially from
older children and those with Deaf families.
Much of the children’s signing in schools took the form of storytell-
ing, and storytelling traditions and skills learned in school carried over
to adulthood. Deaf clubs, where adults meet and tell stories, remain key
contexts for BSL folklore (Smith and Sutton-Spence 2007). It is clear
from the many descriptions of Deaf culture in the United States and
in Britain (e.g., Hall 1989; Ladd 2003; Padden and Humphries 1988;
Rutherford 1993) that there is a very close association for many Deaf
people between signing and their Deaf identity, and also between sign-
ing and storytelling. These associations were strongly reinforced during
the interviews with British Deaf people carried out for this research.
Educational philosophies in Britain have changed considerably
since the 1980s, and BSL is now more widely recognized and accepted
as a language for deaf children. Paradoxically, increased recogni-
tion and status of BSL has coincided with a dramatic decrease in the
number of schools for deaf children. Today, over 90 percent of deaf
children are educated within a mainstream setting, and thus have little
opportunity to share Deaf culture or sign language with their peers.
Most qualified teachers of the Deaf are still hearing people (British
Association of Teachers of the Deaf 2000), and although some of them
now have good BSL skills, their signing ability rarely matches that of
Deaf adults. However, signing Deaf adults still work in a few remain-
ing Deaf schools (or units within schools catering to deaf children).
In the past, most deaf children had no option but to learn from each
other because of a lack of linguistic and cultural adult role models at
home or in school. Now, in these remaining Deaf schools, Deaf adults
can introduce children to live BSL narratives that teach both sign
language and Deaf heritage and identity. Historically, when children
told each other stories in school they did so primarily for entertain-
ment and learned other things incidentally. Adults, however, can use
signed narratives intentionally to teach Deaf children about language,
themes, plot, and character.
Sign Language and Deaf Identity

Self-identity requires the sense of being oneself and not another. Thus,
the first step in the development of a Deaf identity is understanding
that Deaf people are different from hearing people. It is by no means
obvious to a young deaf child that he or she is deaf. In a great many
cases, this understanding first occurs with the realization that some
people sign and some do not.
The link between signing and a Deaf identity has been widely
documented (Ladd 2003; Lane, Hoffmeister, and Bahan 1996; Padden
1989; Padden and Humphries 1988). While hearing people may see
Deaf people as people who cannot hear, many Deaf people identify
themselves as people who see the world visually and use sign language.
Thus, deafness is not a loss but a social, cultural, and linguistic iden-
tity. Paul Scott’s childhood discovery that he was deaf is typical in his
observation that using signs rather than speech distinguished Deaf
people from hearing people:
When I was small I thought the world was full of deaf people. Yes, we
were great! Because when I was small my parents were Deaf. At school I
didn’t know if my teachers were Deaf or hearing because they signed and
to my mind they were automatically Deaf. The other children I mixed
with signed. I signed with Deaf people at home. So everyone was Deaf
and that was fine. I knew my grandmother was a problem because she
was different. She spoke so she was different and I avoided her. We didn’t
have much of a relationship. One day my mum and I were on the bus
going shopping and there were people all around us. I said to my mum
“Those people are like grandmother—speaking,” and Mum said, “Yes,
they’re hearing.” So I picked up on the sign HEARING and asked what
it was. She said, “Oh, hearing people can hear sound.” “Am I hearing?”
I asked. “No, you’re Deaf.” “Oh, right.” I looked at all the people on the
bus, all of them speaking, and asked how many hearing people there
are and she said that the world is full of hearing people. I asked her, “So
these people on the bus are all hearing? All the people in those houses,
hearing? In those cars, hearing?” Mum said, “Yes.” “So you and me are
few?” “Yes.” I cried my eyes out. I’d thought the world was full of Deaf
people and it wasn’t.
Richard Carter’s report of a conversation with some eleven-year-old deaf

children also shows clearly that deaf children see signing and speaking
as the defining features of Deaf and hearing people. The children had
remarked that Richard was Deaf and, teasing them, he replied:
“No I’m not. I’m hearing.”

One of the deaf boys said, “You don’t speak. I saw you signing. I saw you
didn’t understand when the teachers spoke. That’s the same. I don’t
understand. We’re the same.”
It really hit me he knew what Deaf means. I asked [the deaf child with
learning difficulties], “Am I Deaf?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“You sign.”
“I sign but those people there sign too. Are they Deaf?”
“No, they’re hearing. They speak and talk on the phone. You don’t.”
So he knew what Deaf identity meant.
Thus, Richard’s account reinforces the Deaf view of Deaf identity. The
child in Richard’s narrative distinguishes people according to their
uses of signing and speech. There is no reference to differences in
the ability to hear.
Although sign languages fulfill all the functions of language, there
appears to be a strong awareness among Deaf people that signing is
especially for storytelling. (Perhaps English might be used in other
situations and for other functions, but signing is for stories.) There is
a strong link between storytelling and acquiring sign languages. Many
Deaf adults (who went to Deaf schools before widespread mainstream
education in the 1990s led to the loss of guaranteed interaction with
other deaf children) learned their signing by watching other chil-
dren tell stories. Clearly, this is not how most languages are typically
acquired. Most Deaf adults, when asked, will give accounts of signing
and telling stories to other children at school. Clive Mason summed
it up succinctly when he remarked:
Stories start from when you start signing. From very young—five or six,
or one or two or whenever you arrive at school. So, some start stories
when they are five. Everyone’s been speaking round them, then they see
signing and they start and just keep on signing.
Hal Draper also commented on this:

At school we were allowed time in the evening to express ourselves in
our own way with signs. We told stories and used our imagination, and
talked about things we’d done in the day—for example, making donkey’s
ears when the teacher’s back was turned—and those things were handed
down in school. Signing time was at schools when signing was banned
in the day. . . . By day I was Hal, oral deaf. By night I was Hal, Deaf deaf.
In his final sentence the first “Deaf” means that he was a signer and
thus truly Deaf. It was the signed storytelling that created that sense
within him.
Narratives of Personal Experience

Although the focus of much of the rest of this article is on fictional
signed narratives, we should note that non-fictional narratives in the
form of personal experience narratives (usually defined as those that
concern real people and real events) are widespread and viewed as a
core of Deaf cultural life. In BSL, these narratives may be presented as
the storyteller’s experiences, or the experience of other Deaf people
in the community, or as the experiences of “someone very like” real
community members. Such stories teach Deaf children about their
community and their place within it.
BSL storytelling traditions tend to take shape in terms of narration
style and thematic content, centering on the performance of, and
themes of, the narratives rather than on identifiable fictional plots.
Thus, the non-fictional narrative of personal experience fits as a core
genre in signed folklore. In previous decades, the degree of innovation
in personal narrative set these stories outside the conventional scope
of folkloristics. However, Sandra Stahl recognized in 1977 that many
folklore studies had already accepted personal narratives as part of the
oral storytelling tradition of many groups. Stahl makes it clear that the
“folkloric performance” of personal narratives can be seen as traditional
with respect to aspects other than text, including “function, theme, pat-
tern of response, or process of composition” (1977:13). Attitudes implied
in the stories, even if never explicitly stated, may be the most significant
feature of personal narratives, since they enable these tales to reveal
and transmit the beliefs, values, and aspirations of a social group. Stahl
argues that it is “the combination of traditional resources, artistry, and
interpersonal contact that makes a performance folkloric” (1977:13).
Thus, although the plot of a personal narrative is non-traditional, other
aspects “such as traditional structure, use, attitudes, or idioms” are part
of the folkloric tradition (1977:14). In personal narratives, folkloric
themes and structures are combined with idiosyncratic plots, characters,
and situations to create narratives that tellers recognize and approve.
In much that follows, these ideas are key to understanding personal
narratives as exemplars of British Deaf folklore.
Scollon and Scollon distinguish ways of learning among traditional

Athabaskan people and the knowledge acquisition styles of European
Americans, whose learning is driven by “modern literacy” (1981). They
write that Athabaskan knowledge is acquired through personal experi-
ence and listening to the recounted experiences of others. Knowledge
contextualized in the personal experiences of the storyteller (and,
in traditional stories, as part of the experiences of the ancestors) is
contrasted with the more decontextualized authoritarian knowledge
associated with modern Western literacy. The Athabaskan learning
mode is strikingly similar to ways of learning within British Deaf com-
munities, and Deaf adults who teach through narratives of personal
experience contribute to this tradition.4
With respect to the importance of recurring narrative themes rather
than specific plot elements, Hall has observed that skits performed in
American Sign Language (ASL) have no set scripts but are usually con-
cerned with “some common traditional themes” (1989:215), including
the trials of marriage, encounters in doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, or
interactions between Deaf travelers and the hearing people they meet
on their journeys. British Sign Language emphasizes these themes as
well; in addition, BSL stories often tell about chance meetings with
other Deaf people, encounters and misunderstandings with hearing
people, and life at school and work (Bahan 2006).
As in Paul Scott’s earlier story, many Deaf narratives also explore
discovering one’s own deafness. Just as members of a gay community
will have personal “coming out” stories, all the Deaf people I have
ever asked can relate the moment they first realized that they were
deaf. The exact facts of a narrative such as Paul’s do not need to be
verifiably true; the narrative has almost certainly been altered to adapt
the child’s experience into an adult perspective. However, the essen-
tial message of the story remains. These narratives are often shared
with other members of the community, particularly new members,
because they represent shared experiences with which other Deaf
people can identify. As Hal Draper said in relation to funny stories
and Deaf humor:
The big thing about the all-Deaf audiences was the way they identified
with the experiences and so they laughed. They could sit and watch and
laugh and think, “Yes, I remember the same thing happening to me be-
fore.” Also for some deaf people who were new to the Deaf community
it brought out lots of things from deep inside about themselves. They
watched things being performed that they felt embarrassed about and
realized “I am not the only one who’s had this problem—all Deaf have
this problem.”
Nigel Howard’s description of the role of these personal experience

narratives is worth quoting in full. Although Nigel grew up in Canada,
his experience as a deaf child there was very similar to that of British
deaf children.
Deaf residential schools have their own specific folklore but when you
look at the stories that come from each of the schools they tend to draw
on common experiences, perhaps the struggle against the ways of the
hearing world or whatever . . . and when you compare the stories you
find that they have lots of similar threads. The actual detail of the tales
is different but there are main themes in common due to shared expe-
riences. . . . [T]here are many stories created by Deaf people coming
together and sharing their experience. It might be that two people who
have been to the same school will share a specific story about something
that happened whereas a person who went to a different school won’t
share the specific detail but will have had a similar experience.
Paul’s story of discovering on the bus that he was deaf is an example

of a specific instance of a common experience. Another of his narra-
tives discussed in depth later can be seen as a narrative of experience,
although not of his own experience. This one tells of another specific
instance in which arise the general themes of travel, interaction with
hearing people, and situations or problems caused by not hearing
things. Paul explained to me that the experience happened to a friend
but could just as well be that of “the Deaf Everyman.” In common with
many BSL stories it has no title; I will refer to it here as “The Deaf
Man on the Plane.” A complete translation of the story may be seen
in the appendix, but a summary is given here: a Deaf man who did
not want other people to know he was deaf traveled on an airplane.
When the plane landed he rushed to the exit, eager to be first off, but
found the exit door was closed. Realizing he had missed some crucial
information, he had to admit that he was Deaf, and the flight attendant
explained in a note that the plane had been diverted so they needed
to wait at this airport before flying on to their final destination. Very
embarrassed, the man returned to his seat.
This story is an example of the category described by Hall (1989)
of a Deaf traveler’s encounter with hearing people. In many such nar-
ratives—termed the “Thousand and One Victories” by Paddy Ladd
(2003)—the Deaf character triumphs in some small way over the

hearing character. Paul’s story, however, belongs to another narrative
category, in which a Deaf person embarrasses himself by not accepting
his deafness. The events in the story did not happen to Paul, nor is the
story told as something that had happened to his friend. Instead, it was
presented as a story about a generic, ordinary Deaf person, such as any
of the children in his class might become. The story has a clear moral
and educational intention; Paul explained that he used it to encourage
the children to take pride in their deafness and publicly acknowledge
it by getting them to think about the consequences of not doing so.
Folkloric and Fairy Tales in English and BSL

Almost all British Deaf signers I have talked to agree there is not a
tradition of specific stories within the British Deaf community that
“everybody knows.” This is in contrast to American Deaf culture,
which some researchers have found to contain traditional ASL nar-
ratives (e.g., Lane, Hoffmeister, and Bahan 1996; Rutherford 1993).
Informant TT had signing Deaf parents and grew up within the Deaf
community. When asked about traditional BSL stories, she replied in
a way typical of most of the informants interviewed:
Not traditional stories like “Goldilocks” or “The Three Little Pigs.” Those
are for hearing people. Deaf stories talk about experience. I don’t think
Deaf people have their own traditional stories like that.
The exceptions to this are jokes and funny stories, which are widely
shared within the BSL Deaf community (Sutton-Spence and Napoli
2009). TT added:
Recently a young person told me a “new” joke that I knew when I was
young, so the joke is clearly still around. Maybe a group of young people
get told a joke by an older Deaf person and they then go out and spread
it, thinking it’s new when it isn’t.
Clark Denmark, also from a Deaf family, is the only informant who
identified traditional stories established in the Deaf community. It
may be that he was referring to these humorous anecdotes and jokes
mentioned by TT or the ones that Nigel Howard observed are passed
down within one school. He remarked on stories that children make
up for themselves in schools but then added: “I also know other stories
that have been passed down from generation to generation.”
Despite the paucity of traditional BSL stories, many stories that are
passed down in English through generations of hearing British people
are also passed down in BSL through Deaf generations. Part of British
Deaf identity today is bilingualism and biculturalism, so most Deaf
people have some skills in written English and observe British cultural
traditions. The heritage of the British Deaf community is made up of
the cultural heritage of Britain’s Deaf people and also that of their
hearing families and the rest of British society. Thus, although there
appear to be very few identifiable traditional BSL stories recognized
across the community, British deaf children often have some knowl-
edge of traditional British stories. They may have read them in English
or seen them in films, but they may also have seen them signed in BSL.
When these traditional British folkloric narratives are signed,
they may simply be translated into BSL; however, the characters in
these signed stories may also be represented as Deaf, allowing the
children to identify with the narrative more strongly. The BBC televi-
sion magazine program for the Deaf community, See Hear, broadcast
a BSL version of “The Pied Piper” in the mid 1980s that was told by
respected community storyteller Billy Burt. In this version of the story,
the one child who was left behind was not lame, but deaf. Unaware of
the Piper’s music, he did not follow his hearing playmates. In contrast,
in the mid 1990s, See Hear broadcast Jerry Hanafin’s BSL version of
“Little Red Riding Hood,” which is now widespread among British
Deaf people (Sutton-Spence and Woll 1998). All characters in this
tale were Deaf and lived a Deaf lifestyle, with flashing-light doorbells
and text telephones in their homes. The characters all signed to each
other and behaved in other culturally approved Deaf ways, such as
tapping another person’s shoulder to get attention before starting to
sign. The sole hearing character in this story was the wolf. (The vil-
lains in these signed versions of traditional tales are often portrayed
as hearing characters. For example, in many current BSL versions of
“Snow White,” all characters are Deaf except the Wicked Queen. In
“Cinderella,” the ugly sisters are usually hearing people.)
In the United States, adaptation of traditional stories is part of ASL
tradition, but these modifications do not always distinguish between
Deaf and Hearing cultural identities. Instead, ASL stories might
highlight differences within the American Deaf community. Carol
Padden and Tom Humphries refer to a retelling of “Cinderella” in
which distinctions between orally educated and manually educated
deaf people are highlighted (1988). In this version, the glass slipper
is replaced by magical gloves, enabling the orally educated Cinderella
to sign to her manually educated Prince Charming. This distinction
between orally and manually educated Deaf people is more salient
within the American Deaf community than it is within the British Deaf
community (Padden and Humphries 1988, 2005). Jenny Smith quotes
Janet, a British Deaf informant who gives a version of a signed British
modification of the story:
Me and a friend changed “Cinderella”: the ugly sisters were two hearing
sisters, the fairy godmother was Deaf, hearing dogs for the Deaf became
the coachmen, Cinderella was Deaf, Prince Charming was Deaf and all
the rest were hearing. Cinderella didn’t want to go home and marry a
hearing person, she lost her ear mould and she was found by having the
hearing aid that matched it!” (2005)
These modifications to traditional folktales are mostly recent. Clark

(now in his 50s) said that he did not remember stories being adapted
in that way when he was young and he attributed the newer “adopt
and adapt” approach to increased confidence in the Deaf community
in relation to wider hearing society. He suggested:
Perhaps in the past Deaf people didn’t have the confidence to adapt sto-
ries, perhaps they felt that hearing stories were to be respected and left
alone. I think now the Deaf community has become more confident and
will happily take something “hearing” and produce it in their own way.
Existing traditional stories in BSL are important for children’s general

education within British society irrespective of whether there have been
any modifications to make them Deaf-related. As Clark suggested, in
“the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ that both Deaf and hearing people
know, it is clear that the moral of the story is about laying strong foun-
dations and any child can watch and enjoy the story.”
BSL Fantasy Stories and Deaf Identity

Although there is no notable BSL tradition of widespread single-au-
thored fantasy stories, some adults do tell such narratives in BSL, often
with the same elements of magic seen in English stories for younger
children. However, they also include culturally relevant details especially
appropriate for deaf children. As with the personal experience narra-
tives, original single-authored stories of the Harry Potter or The Hobbit
variety might not normally be considered folklore, but many scholars of

folklore have taken interest in just these stories (e.g., Campbell 2010; Le
Guin 2009). The context, themes, expectations, attitudes, and—perhaps
most importantly—the artistic language used in BSL fantasy narratives
all have roots in BSL traditions. Although these stories are aimed at chil-
dren, adults enjoy them greatly—in part because the narrative strategies
used in such stories are also valued in adult storytelling.
Here, I will comment on an original single-authored fantasy nar-
rative told by Richard Carter to deaf children in school, considering
the many features of Deaf folklore seen in its content, language,
and structure. I will refer to the tale as “The Owl Interpreter.” A full
translation of the story—and a link to an online video recording of
it—may be found in the appendix, but I summarize it here: A boy hates
his school, where his teacher forbids signing and insists the children
lipread and speak. She brings a toy owl into the classroom as a prop
to teach them to say the word owl, and then puts the owl on a shelf as
she continues to speak the rest of the lesson. The owl starts to sign to
the children, interpreting what the teacher is saying. After that, the
boy loves school—but the next day the owl is gone. Miserable and
angry, hating school again, he finds the owl has been thrown away. He
rescues it and brings it home. The owl works with him, encouraging
and helping him to study, and enables him to get his university degree.
The content of both “The Deaf Man on the Plane” and “The Owl
Interpreter” teaches audiences about Deaf identity, but in different
ways. Paul told the former to older children; he used “The Deaf Man
on the Plane” explicitly for instructional purposes, making it a basis for
discussion. The latter tale, told by Richard, was primarily intended for
enjoyment by younger children, but it also encodes particular values
and attitudes within its highly artistic and creative form.
Many elements in these two narratives also occur in other children’s
stories for both deaf and hearing British children. For example, all
children will have had the general experience of unexpected pleasures,
anticipation, and disappointment that occur in “The Owl Interpreter.”
Children have expectations with regard to their school experience—
playground friendships, traveling to school with a responsible adult,
teachers they dislike, homework, and so on. These are all part of the
common experience of children in Britain today, and it is important to
recognize that deaf children share in this childhood culture. However,
Deaf children also face particular issues related to their Deaf identity.
Deaf and Hearing Characters in BSL Narratives

It is no coincidence that many of the characters in stories mentioned
so far have been Deaf. It may appear to be laboring the point but Deaf
characters are key to many BSL narratives, whether for children or
adults. By no means all signed stories include Deaf people, but for a
community whose members are habitually overlooked, ignored, or
misunderstood, stories that show Deaf characters are highly valued.
Clive Mason noted this when he commented:
Theater that tells stories about [a Deaf] experience and our culture and
history make you think, “Right! That happened to me!” I might quite
enjoy Shakespeare but Deaf theatre is connected to our culture—culture
and language. So I really enjoy Deaf theatre, even if it’s amateur. I still
enjoy it. . . . Comedy—Deaf comedy, anything, so long as it’s linked to
Deaf people. Short films—linked to the Deaf experience. If it’s a play
that isn’t related to Deaf experience or culture it’s not so good, so they
end up having to put a lot of Deaf references back in. Then I enjoy it.
Richard Carter remarked in relation to the stories he tells deaf chil-

dren:
If there are no Deaf characters they’ll lose attention and look around,
bored. So I put a Deaf character in and they feel, “Same as me.” It means,
“I’m involved.” I want them involved in my story so they can see it clearly
in their mind’s eye and empathize [lit: “change places with”] the charac-
ters. That’s what they like.
In both the stories under consideration here, deafness creates grounds

for audience engagement. Paul begins “The Deaf Man on the Plane”
by explaining that the central character was Deaf but didn’t want
other people to know it. Here, the children can identify with the
man’s deafness, even though his age means that he is not a peer in
other respects. Richard never explicitly says that the boy in “The Owl
Interpreter” is deaf. However, his practice of signing and his experi-
ences at school make it clear that he is. Presenting the protagonist as
a deaf child enables the younger deaf children watching the story to
feel an immediate bond with the character.
Frequently the signers who agreed to be interviewed for this study
used a BSL sign that can be translated as link to, relate to, join with, or
identify with. It was difficult to find an English word that best translated
this sign in the context they were using it. However, Breda Carty has
observed that Australian Sign Language uses a range of different signs
in relation to the concept of identity; the one used to mean “identifying

with a group” is “an emphasized form of JOIN” (1994:40). It seems ap-
propriate, then, to translate the BSL sign in the same way,5 to show how
signers understand that narratives allow the signer to identify with the
character or content in the story. In translating Clive’s remarks above,
I have used the words connected, linked, and related, but his BSL signs
in this context all carry with them the idea that he can identify bodily
with theatre, comedy, and films when they include Deaf characters or
the experience of Deaf people.
Apart from the central Deaf characters, all other characters in
both stories are hearing, including the boy’s mother in “The Owl In-
terpreter.” This is the typical home experience of most deaf children,
so the setting is also one to which they can relate. Most hearing char-
acters in the stories are not antipathetic to Deaf characters; indeed
the boy’s mother is clearly kind and loving, and the flight attendant is
polite and helpful, but as hearing people they are nonetheless “other.”
The hearing characters are the “them” to the deaf child’s view of Deaf
characters as “us” (Bahan 2006).
The issue of “us” and “them” comes to the forefront in the story role
of “ally” or “helper” (Bahan 2006; Propp [1927] 1968). In many BSL
children’s stories, the child character may have an ally. In another of
Richard’s fantasy stories, a Deaf Jack-in-a-Box becomes a comrade to
a little boy who opens his present on Christmas morning before he is
allowed to.6 The Jack-in-a-Box turns out to be one of “us,” but his status
as ally is not initially clear in the story, and this creates the dramatic
tension in the piece. Although the Jack-in-a-Box is Deaf (“us”), he
tells the boy directly and clearly that he was very naughty to open his
present early, so the boy cannot be sure that the Jack-in-a-Box won’t
tell his parents (“them”) what he did. The reprimand works, however,
and because the boy is contrite, the two keep the secret between them.
A final conspiratorial wink from the Jack-in-a-Box explains clearly that
one Deaf character is not going to betray another.
This message of Deaf solidarity is important for deaf children who
are being socialized into a community with a strong collective identity
(Ladd 2003; Mindess 1999). The children implicitly learn from the
story that Deaf people will look out for other Deaf people. Sometimes
their care might require discipline, but Deaf people can always be
expected to act with the well being of another Deaf person at heart.
It is also notable that the Jack-in-a-Box makes it very clear to the little
boy that he has been naughty, using a directness that is valued in the
British Deaf community. While British hearing people might attempt
to explain or justify correction, British Deaf people are more likely to
say simply, “That is wrong.” The Jack-in-a-Box’s sound scolding is the
Deaf way for the boy to learn about his transgression.
Deaf allies are common in BSL narratives and have been described
in research on signed storytelling in other sign languages (e.g., Bahan
2006; Ladd 2003; Rutherford 1993), but hearing allies of Deaf people
are featured much less often. The role of hearing characters in BSL
narratives is usually to create the tension or the problem to be resolved,
or to provide the “disequilibrium” or “lack” to be counterbalanced with
the “equilibrium” or “liquidation of lack” (Propp [1927] 1968) within
the story. A good example of a problematic hearing character is the
teacher in “The Owl Interpreter” who forbids signing. The teacher is
definitely not an ally. She represents the oppression of Deaf people
through her insistence on speech and her rejection of sign language,
and she is—unwittingly but arrogantly—a barrier to Deaf communi-
cation, happiness, and success. Before she walks into the classroom
the children communicate fluently and happily but her very presence
prevents signing. They freeze when she opens the door. She forbids
signing, just as she forbids laughter. She tells them not to sign under
the table, but they resort to signing anyway in order to learn anything
at all from her lesson. Her attitude even prevents the magic owl from
signing. Whenever she looks at it, it stands completely still with its
wings by its side.
In his broad survey of ASL narratives, Ben Bahan failed to find hear-
ing allies apart from occasional hearing people who can sign because
their parents were Deaf (2006). Bahan concluded that there is no real
role for hearing allies in ASL narratives because they do not create the
necessary tension. However, in “The Owl Interpreter” there is already
a hearing “villain” in the form of the unkind teacher, and the owl ally
needs to be hearing (“them”) in order to mediate between teacher and
children. Despite the owl’s hearing status, this interpreter is clearly on
the children’s side and hence an honorary member of “us.”
Classroom interpreters are a part of life for many deaf children.
Although interpreters who work between speech and BSL are always
hearing people (by necessity), “The Owl Interpreter” encourages
children to see them as potential allies. Members of the Deaf com-
munity may hold ambivalent feelings toward interpreters, whose role
as information gatekeepers gives them considerable power (Stone

2006). While children need to see Deaf characters in stories depicted
in a positive light, and while they may also enjoy the naughty thrill
of seeing hearing people portrayed as “bad,” it is also important that
they learn that hearing people can be friends who help Deaf people
achieve their goals. Presenting the owl as an enabling ally for the deaf
boy portrays interpreters—and thus some hearing people—positively.
The Value of Sign Language, Writing, and Speech

As in many children’s stories, in the narratives I’ve discussed here it is
only children who can see magic or interact with magical characters.
In addition, in “The Owl Interpreter” the children are the only ones
to see magic characters use sign language. The owl stands with his
wings by his side and adopts a deliberately neutral facial expression
whenever the teacher is looking, and it later signs to the boy only when
they are alone. In this context, then, hearing status is as important as
age: magical signing creatures sign only to Deaf people, not to hearing
people. This is significant because members of the Deaf community are
expected to protect their language and safeguard it for others. This has
not been easy throughout Deaf history because hearing people have
frequently tried to suppress and even destroy sign language. Despite in-
creasing numbers of hearing signers, the Deaf community understands
that it “owns” BSL and this ownership is important for deaf children
to understand. Further, in “The Owl Interpreter” signing is equated
with happiness, friendship, and success. When the boy is anxious to
go to school the morning after meeting the owl he says, “I want to go
to school now! All my friends will be signing there.” At the start of the
story he hates school, but as soon as the magic owl brings signing to
the classroom he loves it. When the owl vanishes, signing also vanishes
from the classroom and he hates school again. The link in this story
between signing and enjoyment is undeniable. The teacher tells one
child that signing is not allowed and immediately forbids the next
child to laugh. Showing her disapproval of both signing and laughter
reinforces the association between signing and pleasure.
Signing is also associated with education. When the teacher in
the story does not sign, the students cannot learn from her. Instead,
they sign to and learn from each other. When they have the option to
learn from another authority—the owl—through sign language, they
immediately do so. But as soon as the owl disappears and the only
alternative is to learn through lipreading, they revert to their custom
of trying to learn from each other.
Although BSL is foregrounded in “The Owl Interpreter” as the lan-
guage for happiness and success, there is also the message that English
skills will lead to success if they are acquired through BSL. Education is
valued within the Deaf community, and particular emphasis is placed
on bilingual skills in written English and BSL. Spoken English is ac-
corded much less value. Many Deaf people strongly dislike lipreading
and speaking, and they tell stories about their negative experiences with
speech therapy sessions at school and about their struggles lipreading.
In the interviews carried out for this study, Clive Mason commented
that language oppression is a major topic for signed stories and other
forms of BSL folklore because “all Deaf share the experience of lan-
guage oppression. . . . All the things like being caned on your hands
or having them tied behind your back; oralism; being told off. . . .”
Thus, it is not surprising that many of the children’s experiences with
English in “The Owl Interpreter” are unsatisfactory, as the students
try to learn to speak and are repeatedly forbidden to sign. Even the
boy’s loving mother supports speech over signing at school. She tells
her son, “You know signing’s not allowed. You should be lipreading.”
The hearing world’s disapproval of signing is most clearly shown
in the narrator’s inclusion of a harridan of a teacher. Before even
starting the lesson she sternly tells the class, “All of you! Signing is not
allowed!” The children rapidly work out among themselves that the
teacher has brought in an owl and swiftly share this information by
signing OWL to each other. The teacher scolds them for signing and
writes the English word owl on the board and for the rest of the lesson
they simply practice saying it aloud. There is no further education in
the lesson because whatever the teacher says is lost as they struggle
to lipread but fail. This part of the story is the essence of many deaf
children’s experience in the classroom. Even if it is not the experience
of children watching the story, they learn the frustrations of lipreading
through stories such as this one, which suggests what it was like for
their Deaf teachers when they were children and what other children
today may still experience.
In contrast, the owl appreciates that good English is important
for success, but recognizes that acquisition of written English should
come through sign language, like all Deaf education. The owl tells the
children to study and work on their reading and writing. It tells the boy
in his room to go to books for information or to use his computer. But
it never tells the children to work on their speech. In Paul’s story “The
Deaf Man on the Plane,” effective written English is also valorized: it is
clear that communication with hearing people need not be a problem
if one has sufficient English skills. The Deaf man’s problem was not
that he couldn’t hear, but rather that he did not negotiate properly
with the hearing people around him. The flight attendant, in behavior
viewed as quite correct in the Deaf community, used a written note
to explain to him what was happening. He did not fail to understand
because she refused to write and only spoke to him. Thus, the onus
is put upon the deaf children to make sure that they can function
satisfactorily in the wider hearing world, and the message here is that
written English will serve the purpose.
The lack of signing skills by hearing people means that commu-
nication between the adults and children in “The Owl Interpreter”
is limited. The boy’s mother mostly uses gestures and simple phrases
and single word signs, and she and the teacher bestow the somewhat
empty praise “Good boy!” throughout the story. The boy’s mother tells
him to be a good boy when he goes into school. Later, as the children
struggle to articulate the word owl the teacher says, “Good boy.” Even
when the third boy says the word badly the teacher smiles patronizingly
and responds with “Good boy.” Both the boy and the teacher know
it wasn’t a good articulation and also know it is not going to get any
better, but they collude with the phrase “Good boy.”
The use of the phrase in these contexts is quite familiar to Deaf
adults. Frequently, deaf children are told to behave or “be good” but
the children have no idea what that actually means and why they need
to be good. As Richard mentioned in his interview:
If deaf children are naughty, I’ve seen hearing teachers . . . say “Please
behave yourself,” without explaining why. The children think “Why?”
because they don’t understand why, and don’t know what’s naughty and
what’s not, so they need extra information to explain so they understand
what’s wrong.
Consequently, deaf children often learn to do things that hearing

adults will respond to with “good boy” (or “good girl”), but without
understanding what is commendable about their behavior. In part,
misunderstandings of these sorts occur because hearing adults are
likely to offer praise not because children have achieved a high stan-
dard, but simply because the adults lack the communication skills
necessary to explain to their deaf children how to improve. Many Deaf
adults report that their teachers told them at school that their speech
skills were good, but when they left school they found that few people
could understand them. In sum, this idiomatic phrase would be widely
recognized by almost any Deaf adult, and as such may be seen as part
of Deaf tradition reflected in this tale.
The Value of Accepting One’s Deafness

Accepting oneself as a Deaf person is also a crucial element of Deaf
identity. The two stories here work to support Carty’s claim that a
healthy Deaf identity requires “embracing Deafness as an essential,
positive part of oneself” (1994). In “The Owl Interpreter” there is no
question about the boy’s comfort with his Deaf identity. He loves his
mother and lives happily in his world, accepting who he is and enjoy-
ing signing with his deaf friends. There is no sense of stigma here. His
only problem is the refusal of his teacher to communicate in a way he
can understand. Once he has met the owl he knows what he needs in
order to succeed, and by taking control of the situation and rescuing
the owl, he gets it. He is obedient and hard-working, as well as per-
sistent in the face of setbacks, as we see when he struggles to lipread
his teacher and when he sadly gets on with his homework by himself
when he thinks the owl will not sign to him. These are all qualities and
behavior valued in the British Deaf community, and children learn
from this story that life as a deaf child is perfectly acceptable.
However, the Deaf man on the airplane, in denying his deafness,
only humiliates himself. The philosophy behind oralism views deafness
as a stigma and encourages deaf children to conceal their deafness and
“pass” as hearing. Passing, in Goffman’s sense ([1963] 1990), allows
someone from a stigmatized group to avoid discrimination and benefit
from the privileged status enjoyed by non-stigmatized sections of soci-
ety. Deaf people attempting to pass as hearing are “discreditable” in
Goffman’s terms because their stigma may be unintentionally revealed.
Paul’s story rejects this self-threatening approach in favor of accepting
the self as non-stigmatized. It shows how a Deaf person may attempt to
pass and also how discrediting may happen, with the message that it
is not healthy to intentionally deny who you are. The story also alerts
its audience to the strategies used by Deaf people who want to pass as
hearing. The man in Paul’s story pretends he is a foreigner who does
not speak English. He is able to negotiate his way through the airport
and onto the plane by means of his previous travel experience and
by simply showing his documents when necessary. The man, trying to
spare himself a small humiliation, behaves according to the rules of
hearing society, oralism, and “them.” Had he accepted his deafness,
the story suggests, he would have been spared the far greater humili-
ation that resulted from his discreditation.
Language and Structure in BSL Stories

In 1986, Richard Bauman analyzed the literary qualities of what he
termed “orally performed verbal art.” His detailed attention to the form
and structure of stories within their narrative and narrated contexts
allowed him to move beyond narrative content in order to focus on
interactions between the act of storytelling, the narrative texts, and the
events narrated by the stories. My approach here takes after Bauman
and considers the importance of language in the performances of
Richard and Paul, showing how even in narratives of non-traditional
content, specific language innovation occurs within traditional ex-
pectations. It is worth noting that language artistry is enjoyed by Deaf
adults, even those who are fluent signers, as well as by deaf children
in the classroom. But teachers in Deaf schools employ their art with
the specific aims of enculturation and education.
Language can be learned through interaction in a native environ-
ment or be formally taught in the classroom, where structure, grammar,
and correct usage are explicitly discussed. Additionally, literacy skills
and language skills are intimately connected, as literacy encourages
children to use increasingly sophisticated language. BSL narrative is
a powerful tool for language teaching in all of these senses. Readers
unfamiliar with the Deaf community are reminded that many deaf
children arrive at school with minimal BSL skills, having had no ex-
posure to sign language, despite their deafness.
The language used in both the stories described here is engaging
and appropriate to the abilities of the target audiences (Ryan 1993).
Richard and Paul are recognized within the wider British Deaf com-
munity as being good signing storytellers—having “the knack” (Ruther-
ford 1993), or being “smooth signers” (Bahan 2006). They have broad
Figure 1: Signs HUSH, INTERPRET and HELP-YOU all signed with the “flat owl
wing” handshape. HUSH should use the index finger; INTERPRET should use a
‘V’ handshape and HELP-YOU should use a closed fist with the thumb extended.
repertoires of stories appropriate for adults, too. The form of BSL in

their narratives shows children the potential for their language in the
hands of fluent adult role models, highlighting the language valued
in storytelling. There are many elements in both of these stories that
demonstrate the storytellers’ skills, but one feature—characteriza-
tion—will be the focus here.
There is a general expectation in the Deaf community that BSL
stories should contain elements of humor, and this is effected through
the way stories are signed. Deaf adults repeatedly report that they value
and find humorous the performances of highly visual and original
signing that embodies characters by means of carefully observed and
cleverly reproduced mannerisms (also referred to in the sign linguistics
literature as “transfer of person,” “roleshift,” or “role playing”; see Risler
2007 and Sallandre 2007). Both of the stories described here identify
and describe characters using extensive characterization. As Richard
observed above, this helps the audience identify and empathize with
the characters.
During characterization, the storyteller becomes the character, so
that the signer’s gestures become the gestures of the character, who
is simultaneously referred to and literally presented. That is, whatever
storytellers do with their hands, eyes, or facial expression while they are
embodying a character is understood to refer to and represent what
that character does with hands, eyes, or face. Marie-Anne Sallandre
mentions that the character that “takes over” the signer may be “any
entity: human, animal or thing . . . a little boy, a horse, a tree and so
on” (2007:108). In “The Deaf Man on the Plane,” Paul becomes both
the Deaf man and the flight attendant. In the case of “The Owl Inter-
preter,” Richard is taken over by the little boy, his mother, his teacher,
the dustbin man, and the magical signing owl.
Richard’s representation of the signing owl is considered very
funny because the owl retains some of its non-human attributes. Al-
though the owl can sign, it uses its wings instead of hands. The wings
are represented with open flat hands (being most “wing-shaped”),
so all the signs use the same handshape. When the owl signs to the
class “Hush, don’t tell. I’ll interpret for you all and help you, and your
teacher won’t know,” the handshape never alters from the flat shape
of the owl’s wings. In BSL the signs HUSH ME INTERPRET ALL
HELP-YOU SHE TEACHER DON’T-KNOW should use a variety of
handshapes, but the message is fully comprehensible with the single
open flat handshape because the rest of the parameters of the sign
(their movement, orientation, and location) are correct (figure 1).
Anthropomorphic characterization is highly prized in BSL storytell-
ing (Bouchauveau 1994; Sutton-Spence and Napoli 2010). Exposing
children to this skilled signing at an early age encourages them to try
it themselves when they are older.
Caricature is also valued as a humorous form of characterization
within sign language (Bouchauveau 1994; Rutherford 1993; Ryan
1993) and is thus especially appealing to children. As well as being
entertaining for the audience and allowing the signer to demonstrate
BSL skills, caricature is also a weapon used against powerful oppressors.
When Richard caricatures the teacher he is able to make her appear
ludicrous and less frightening. He introduces her with a simple and
clear but exaggerated description of her hair in a tight bun, winged
Dame Edna Everage glasses, ample bosom, corseted waist, and large
hips. Her facial expression is self-important, self-righteous, and self-
satisfied. Her body posture portrays implacable determination (figure
2). The children in the story are terrified of her, but Richard’s carica-
ture contrives to make her into a figure of fun for his audience, even
if they are too young to understand fully the subtleties of his enact-
ment. For instance, when she speaks, the speed of the mouth moving
in meaningless mouth patterns and the detached facial expression
and fluid head movement all show her indifference to the children’s
struggles to understand her.
Paul does not caricature the Deaf man on the plane in his char-
acterization because the man is not lambasted in the same way. He is
not the outright bad character that the teacher is. Yet every movement
Figure 2: Visual description of the teacher—hair in a bun, glasses, bosom, waist,

hips and stance with facial expression.
and expression of the man is clear and highly visual, providing vivid
images for the children to enjoy and creating closer identification
with him. When the man sets himself up for humiliation, however,
greater caricature is employed. He is shown bumping his large suitcase
awkwardly down the aisle of the airplane and then his face shows an
attempt to be dignified despite his great embarrassment. As he bumps
his suitcase back to his seat and sits down again, the movements and
facial expression reflect his mortification. The children to whom Paul
told this story greatly enjoyed the creative representation of humping
the suitcase up and down the aisle. Indeed, it is very funny. When Paul
asked them afterward if they would have preferred to tell people they
were deaf or not, the rebels in the class joked that it would be more fun
to hide their deafness, so that they could hump their own cases up and
down the aisle. This response was almost certainly encouraged by their
engagement with the signs Paul used to show the character’s actions.
BSL storytellers must also learn how to structure sign narratives.
Younger children need to learn the culturally approved order of events
and older children need to learn how to use placement and character
development. It is not practical to enter into all the details of narrative
structure here (see Hall 1989; Rayman 1999; Wilson 1996), but it is
clear that BSL narratives have distinctive features of construction. For
example, while many English narratives are structured so that events

lead to a climax and a denouement, a number of BSL stories favor
visual characterization over plot. When Deaf teachers are telling stories
in the classroom, however, it is with one eye on the fact that children
also need to be developing their skills in English literacy, so in many
senses the structure of the two stories analyzed here conforms much
more closely to a typical English narrative structure (even though char-
acterization is very strong). Repetition is one key feature common to
both narrative traditions, and children seeing these in adults’ stories
will learn how to create repetitive effects in their own stories. Use of
repetition will be considered here in relation to “The Owl Interpreter.”
Repetition and parallelism are common devices used to highlight
similarities and differences between ideas. English, like many European
languages, focuses especially strongly on organizational patterning
using the number three (Olrik [1909] 1965; Dundes [1963] 1965). It
has also been observed that other traditions, including American Sign
Language, are organized in twos and fours (e.g., Hall 1989; Scollon and
Scollon 1981) but I will focus here on the three-fold patterns that are
especially valued in creative BSL (Sutton-Spence 2005, Sutton-Spence
and Ramsey 2010).
Threefold non-specific repetition of movement within signs is rec-
ognized as an aspectual marker in BSL; it simply indicates repeated
action (e.g., Brennan 1992; Sutton-Spence and Woll 1998). In “The
Owl Interpreter,” the mother taps the boy three times to wake him
up, he tosses and turns three times in bed because he is too excited
to sleep, and the bin man shakes the bin three times to empty it.
Each of these actions is merely iterative. Hall has argued in support
of a two-four pattern in ASL narrative structure, observing that two-
fold repetition is a feature of the internal derivational morphology
of signs in ASL—and indeed, this is also true for many BSL signs; for
example, noun-verb pairs are frequently distinguished by a double
or single movement (Supalla and Newport 1978). However, there is
no doubt that triple articulations are also important in BSL and this
fact is highlighted in the story, once again showing children how the
language can be used properly.
The visual-spatial nature of BSL allows signers to use space linguisti-
cally. Signing space can be neatly divided into the left and right hand
sides, especially as the left and right hands can operate independently
as articulators. This often leads to pairing of contrasting concepts—
such as hot and cold, or nice and nasty—with one concept placed on
each side. However, the signer’s body also acts as an articulator, so that
signers can sign three ideas simultaneously (left, center, and right).
This spatial reality of BSL creates a sense of symmetry in which left
and right are joined by a central axis. Temporal symmetries, by anal-
ogy, see past and future joined at the point of the present. Spatially,
this is realized in BSL so that the hands are moved behind a point in
signing space to refer to the past and in front of that point to refer
to the future, with the dividing point referring to the present, creat-
ing a template for threefold repetition. Again, it is essential that deaf
children who are to become the storytellers of the next generation
understand how to use space and repetition effectively. These skills
cannot be learned from English stories, where spatial arrangement of
words is linguistically irrelevant. They can, however, be learned from
signed stories.
The story organization in “The Owl Interpreter” builds different
spatial patterns of three. Some of these triple patterns use vertical sym-
metry, placing signs in left, right, and center space, or use horizontal
symmetry, for example, at head height, shoulder height, and waist
height. Vertical symmetry is seen in the repetition of events in the
classroom. Although the story tells us that several children are sitting
in a semicircle in the classroom, only three children are depicted as
characters in the scenes. This allows the narrator to use the pattern
of three to build considerable symmetry in the narrative. The teacher
signs to the center, to the left, and to the right. Thus she can say three
things: to the front, that they must lipread; to the left, that they must
not sign; and to the right, that they must not laugh. Two children, first
on the left and then on the right, manage to articulate with difficulty
the word owl, but the third, placed in the center, is initially unable to
do so. Only after he begs unsuccessfully to be allowed to sign does he
finally speak the word, bringing the number of articulations to three.
Here the visual aspect of placing the children to the left, right, and
center allows for the parallelism to be laid out visually (figure 3).
At the end of “The Owl Interpreter,” we see horizontal symmetry
where we are told three things about the boy in his graduation pho-
tograph: he is wearing a mortarboard, he has the owl on his shoulder,
and he is holding his degree certificate at body height. Again, the
three concepts are placed at three symmetrically aesthetic locations,
with the owl in the middle of the three (figure 4).
Figure 3: Teacher signing NOT-ALLOWED to the center, left, and right, in order
to create symmetry across a vertical plane.
Stephen Ryan (1993) has identified the repeated symmetrical

placement of signs as crucial to good signed storytelling; deaf children
seeing it used in stories like “The Owl Interpreter” are learning how it
is done. However, repetition may also be temporal and deaf children
can see it used to build tension and visually dramatic effects, learning
as they do how to achieve it themselves.
The same sign may be made for the same event three times,
interspersed each time by a different event. The teacher writes the
word owl on the board, describing the three large letters slowly and
deliberately. After each slow movement of writing a letter, she turns
round suddenly to glare at the children. She slowly writes and quickly
turns three times. This repeated action creates a strong, dramatically
visual image and builds audience anticipation and expectation. (Inci-
dentally, the teacher is right not to trust the children. As Hal Draper
mentioned above, he and his classmates took advantage of the fact
that their hearing teacher could not hear them when they signed by
signing donkey’s ears when the teacher’s back was turned.)
When the owl disappears, the children look desperately at the
teacher, struggling to understand her without it. Their effort to watch
Figure 4: Mortar board, owl on the shoulder, and degree scroll in decreasing heights
to create horizontal symmetry.
Figure 5: Three signs showing the boy sleeping, each one increasingly creative.
intently is signed three times, with different signs made between each
articulation: they watch intently and attempt to lipread; they watch
intently and say to each other “What?” and “I have no idea what she’s
saying”; and they watch intently and the teacher speaks meaninglessly.
This pattern is finally broken when she tells them that the owl has gone.
The tension that has been building through this three-fold repetition is
resolved because this time they finally do understand what she has said.
Threefold repetition may also show the same image from three dif-
ferent perspectives and it is a marker of good storytelling to produce
increasingly creative signs to represent or refer to the same object
or event. The story opens with the boy peacefully asleep. This is first
shown by a sign representing holding his covers to his chest, then by
his sleeping chest softly rising and falling, and finally by his easy, sweet
dreaming (figure 5). The first sign is a conventional sign for sleeping,
albeit one rather more aesthetic and “literary” than the usual BSL
sign ASLEEP. The second sign is more creative, but still immediately
understood within the context. The third sign is the most creative and
has stretched the language beyond normal conventionality into a more
poetic form. Sole use of this third sign would be almost impossible
to understand without the development from the previous two signs.
Thus, the narrator shows children the creative potential of BSL and
how to use it so that audiences can follow the meaning.
Additionally, threefold repetition may show the same action per-
formed by three different characters. The teacher has a frighteningly
forceful and firm stance in which she clasps her hands together. This
stance identifies her in the story and it is frequently shown so that the
audience knows who is being referenced (Hall 1989). Significantly,
her hands-clasped stance marks her out as a non-signer—a speaker
who cannot use her hands for signing. However, two other characters
echo her stance. The child articulating the word owl holds his hands
Figure 6: The teacher’s threatening stance and the child’s and the owl’s imitations of it.
in exactly the same posture as he attempts to copy her whole behavior,

not just her speech. His timid attempt contrasts with her forceful atti-
tude, and the use of the same stance highlights the difference between
them. The third character to use the stance is the owl. Because the owl
signs with its wings, when it mimics the teacher’s stance it does so by
folding its wings across its chest. This last iteration makes the postur-
ing ludicrous rather than frightening (figure 6). It also reinforces the
longstanding deaf school practice of mimicry. A traditional weapon of
the powerless against the powerful, mimicry has been described as an
important part of Deaf folklore. In fact, many children learn mimicry
at school, where they use it to mock their teachers (Bienvenu 1994;
Rutherford 1993). Deaf children in a modern classroom will know
about mimicry from their own experience, and this contributes to the
effect of seeing it in the story.
Thus, we can see from this closer analysis of Richard Carter’s story
that there is enormous scope for the use of single-authored fantasy
stories for the enculturation of deaf children. The specific signs used
and the patterning and spatial positioning of the signs demonstrate
the skills needed for good BSL storytelling, while the facts, values, and
circumstances presented through the language may normalize, rein-
force, and validate the children’s culture. The story—and many others
for community members of all ages—rationalizes Deaf cultural beliefs,
behavior, and attitudes, and does so in a humorous and entertaining way.
Conclusion
As this review has demonstrated, there is great potential within signed
storytelling to teach deaf children about their linguistic and cultural
heritage. The narratives recounted here tell us about Deaf models of
learning in England. In Deaf narratives, we can see which aspects of
Deaf culture and sign language the adult signers value and wish to pass
on to the next generation of Deaf signers. These include pride in deaf-
ness, the value of signing, and the importance of the Deaf community.
Gifted signers are able to build considerable information about their
knowledge of the Deaf world and Deaf experiences into their stories,
presenting them in a language that uses the visual medium. Signed
stories may be structured similarly to English stories, with the classic
buildup to a climax and denouement, and will use similar threefold
patterns. However, these stories also draw upon the visually motivated
resources of sign language to create strongly visual caricatures and
anthropomorphic characterizations in their performance. While the
comments here barely scratch the surface of British Deaf folkloric
practice, it is clear that the discipline should pay closer attention to
the cultural heritage of one of Britain’s native language minorities.
The stories told to deaf children can also inform wider hearing society
about the wealth and pleasures of British Deaf folklore.
University of Bristol
Bristol, United Kingdom
Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge the input from Paul Scott and Richard Carter and their kind
permission to make use of their stories. I also thank Hal Draper, Clark Denmark,
Clive Mason, Nigel Howard and “TT” for their contributions. This research was
supported by the World Universities Network, the Arts and Humanities Research
Council (AHRC grant number AH/G011672/1) and the University of Bristol Faculty
of Social Sciences and Law Research Development Fund. I am indebted to Claire
Ramsey of the University of California, San Diego, for her very helpful comments
on earlier drafts, and to the journal editors, whose advice and assistance went well
beyond what one might hope for. This article also builds on ideas developed by
Paddy Ladd and shared with him in conversations. I gratefully acknowledge his
thinking on the role of Deaf pedagogues as the stimulus for the points made here.
Notes
1. It has become convention in the field of Deaf Studies to use deaf when referring
to a hearing loss, and Deaf to refer to the linguistic and cultural identity of being a
Deaf person, with the characteristics described in this paper. It is not always clear
if a child with hearing loss but only a growing awareness of what it means to have a
Deaf identity should be termed a deaf child or a Deaf child. For convenience I have
used the former throughout this paper. I have nevertheless referred to the man
who denied his deafness in public as Deaf because I assume that he had acquired
most of the characteristics of living as a Deaf person, despite his denial in the story.
In British Sign Language there are a range of other signs to reference cultural at-
titudes to deafness, but they do not necessarily correlate with the d/Deaf distinction.
2. The signed version uses very strong visual characterisation showing the appear-
ance of the characters and it involves meaningful uses of signing space that cannot
be easily translated into English. I discuss these features in more detail below.
3. British Sign Language and American Sign Language are two distinct and
mutually unintelligible languages. Readers unfamiliar with sign languages might
expect them to be similar because the spoken language of both surrounding hear-
ing communities is English. However, sign languages are independent of spoken
languages, and there is no a priori reason for the two sign languages to be related;
in fact, their histories are very different.
4. I am grateful to Tom Humphries for suggesting this idea to me.
5. Australian Sign Language (also called Auslan) and British Sign Language are
historically very closely related and—to a great extent—mutually intelligible. In fact,
some scholars have suggested that BSL, Auslan, and New Zealand Sign Language
should be considered dialects descended from some historical proto-sign-language,
BANZL. See, for example, Johnston 2003.
6. A BSL version of this story may be seen at www.bristol.ac.uk/bslpoetryanthology.
Appendix
Paul Scott, “The Deaf Man on the Plane”

Maybe children think, “I want to behave like a hearing person,” and
I ask them “Is that what you want?” I have to tell them I really don’t
like the idea. They ask me why, so I tell them a story.
One man didn’t want everyone to know he was Deaf so he pre-
tended he just had a language problem. In the airport he showed his
ticket, got his seat number and walked onto the plane with his suitcase.
He was a very experienced plane traveler. The man hated waiting for
his suitcase at the carousel so thought it was better to have his case
with him so that as soon as the plane landed he could get off home.
When the plane landed, he took off his seat belt and got his bag out
of the overhead bin. Everyone was shouting at him but he bumped
his unwieldy bag down the aisle and got to a closed exit door. He real-
ized something was wrong and felt very embarrassed and confused. A
woman tapped him politely on the shoulder. He said, “I’m deaf” and
she said, “I know you’re deaf.” He stood there with his suitcase feeling
very embarrassed. She wrote down for him that they couldn’t go to their
airport because there was a problem there so they had been diverted
to another airport and needed to wait until the problem was sorted
and they could fly on. He said, politely, “Oh, thank you” and then, very
humiliated, he had to hump his bag back down the aisle, open the
bin, put it back and sit down, embarrassed as everyone looked at him.
Look at that Deaf man. Why didn’t he tell them all, “I’m deaf”?
Everyone would have told him, “The plane has a problem, we’ll land
and wait and fly on.” I ask the children, which would you prefer? The
rebels say, “Oh, I like humping the case,” but other children say, “No,
it’s better to tell people you are Deaf.” Sure, the rebels want the prob-
lem to happen but the others want to sort it out. We can compare the
two situations. Is it better to say you are Deaf or not? It’s up to you. If
you don’t tell people you can make yourself look stupid.
Richard Carter, “The Owl Interpreter”

A BSL version of this story may be seen at www.bristol.ac.uk/
bslpoetryanthology.
In order to keep a flavor of the richness of character shift in this story

I have translated it with the retention of some elements of BSL and
simply indicating who is signing or speaking in the story. Where re-
ported speech is indicated, this may be assumed to be produced in sign
language. However, where relevant, the reported speech is prefaced
with “(signing)”, “(speaking)” or “(gesture).” I also follow the usual
convention of writing glossed signs in upper case where the use of a
sign is highlighted (as in OWL). CL means “classifier,” and is used to
refer to verb signs representing some movement of underspecified
objects through space. Where the location of a sign in the space is
relevant because it is described in the text of the article I have noted
this with the position in parentheses, as in “(left).”
Asleep in bed. Breathing softly.

CL-person comes around and taps to wake up.
Boy: “Geroff!” Turns over.
CL-person taps harder.
Boy: “What?!”
Mother: “Up!”
Boy: “Why?”
Mother: “Off to school now!”
Boy: “Oh.”
Covers back. Up. Trousers on, blazer on, satchel on, cap on.
Mother: “Go!”
Walk sulkily. Go downstairs side by side and walk along road side
by side. Hold hand.
Mother: “School. Be a good boy.”
Boy: Looks sulkily.
Mother: “Give me a kiss.”
Boy refuses vehemently and walks off. Mother looks on in resigned
frustration.
He goes in. All his deaf friends are there. He’s much happier. He
says hello to all. They go into class and sit in a horseshoe, chatting.
“What will you do tomorrow? What did you do yesterday?”
CL-person comes in. Door slams open. All look around in shock
and trepidation. Person with battleaxe arms folded, severe bun on top
of her head, Dame Edna winged glasses, big bosom, corseted stomach,
big hips, and fierce facial expression.
Children all look on in horror. She walks to the front of class.
Teacher (signing): “You! Not allowed to sign. Must lipread! (left)
You! Not allowed to sign! No signing under the table! No! (right) You,
laughing! Not allowed to laugh!” Takes up battleaxe posture again.
Picks up bag and puts it on the desk. Children look on in fascination.
Opens a box and takes something out. Battleaxe posture again. Chil-
dren look on in fascination. One asks another (right) “What is it?”
(left) “What is it?”
Teacher (signing): “Not allowed to sign! Lipread! Watch me!” Re-
verts to battleaxe stance. (signing) “This”—picks up a pen for white
board, removes cap and gets ready to write —(signing) “Watch me!
Lipread me! (mouths) ‘owl.’”
Children look confused. (mouth) “owl.”
All look at each other. “Don’t understand?” Child asks another
“What?” Other child signs OWL. “Oh, an owl!”
Teacher: “You!” (right) “Not allowed sign!” (left) “Not allowed sign!”
Points to lips. (mouths) “Watch! Lipread. ‘Owl.’”
Writes O—turns back fast, W—turns back fast, L—turns back.
Teacher: (mouths) “‘Owl.’” (gestures left) “Come on, say it. ‘Owl.’
Good.”
Child: (right) (mouths) “Owl.”
Teacher: (gestures) “Listen, say it again,” (signs) “good boy.”
Teacher: (center) “You.”

Child: (mouths) “Ow.”
Teacher: shakes head and looks stern (gestures) “Come on.”
Child: scared (signing) “I can’t speak. Can’t I sign it?”
Teacher: (gesture) “No! lipread! Come on!”
Child: (speaking) “Oowwwl.”
Teacher: beams with battleaxe posture. Sickly smile (signs) “Good
boy.”
Teacher places the owl on a high shelf and takes up her battleaxe
position. (speaking) “Ok, ok.”
Owl stands on its shelf in its posture and children all look up at owl.
Teacher speaks unintelligibly and at length. Children look on intently
and uncomprehendingly and then back up at the owl.
Owl stands and then winks. (signing) “Shh. I’ll interpret for you all
and help you. The teacher won’t know. Shh.” Owl takes winged equiva-
lent of teacher’s posture.
Teacher stops talking because she notices children looking at the
owl. She turns fast to look at the owl who stands still. She looks back at
the class who all look intently at her and she carries on talking. Then
looks back at the owl.
Owl: “You need to work and learn to write well. It’s very important
that you all must do this.”
Children look in awe at the owl, nodding with small nods of com-
prehension, then guiltily back at the teacher. Teacher looks crossly up
at owl. The bell rings and the children all get up and go out.
Boy rushes up to his mother, “I love school! I love school!”
Mother: “You love school?” Scratches her head, bemused. “This
morning you got up grumpy, now you’ve changed and love school.”
Boy rushes off, mother grabs him, pulls him back by the hand and
they go home and he goes to bed. Next morning he wakes early and
can’t wait to go to school. As soon as his mum wakes him he’s up, all
excited.
Mother: “Whoa! Every day you are grumpy. You’ve changed sud-
denly. What happened?”
Boy: “I don’t know. I love school. I love school.”
Mother: “All right.”
Boy gets dressed. “Come on!”
Mother: “Sit down. Wait.”
Boy: “I want to go to school now! All my friends will be signing

there.”
Mother: “You know signing’s not allowed. You should be lipreading.”
Boy: “I want to see my friends!”
Mother: “OK, off you go. Give me a kiss.”
Boy gives her a big kiss and rushes off. Mother looks after him,
astonished.
Boy signs with friends. “Now we can learn from the owl. I’m so
happy. I love school. Do you all feel the same?”
The door slams open and teacher comes in and all look to the front.
Children all look at each other with quietly confident anticipation.
Teacher starts to talk unintelligibly and children all look confidently
to the owl. Horror! The owl is gone!
They all struggle to lipread. They ask each other “What? What? I
don’t understand.”
Teacher: talks on, then (signing) “Yes, the owl’s gone.”
The bell rings. Children leave as the teacher looks on. She takes
on her battleaxe posture, pushes up her glasses and smoothes herself
down with smug satisfaction.
Boy stomps out grumpily and Mother is surprised to see him
grumpy.
Boy: “I hate school! I hate school!”
Mother is confused because yesterday he was happy and he’s
changed again. “What happened?”
Boy: “I don’t know! I hate school! I don’t like it! I hate it! I hate you!”
Mother: “All right.”
Boy looks up and says, “No!” Runs and shouts “Stop! Stop!”
Bin man is emptying bin. “Stop! Stop!” Child jumps up to look in
the bin lorry. “Mine’s in there!”
Mother rushes after him and asks what’s going on. She says, “Excuse
me” and talks to the bin man and asks the boy “What?”
Boy: “The owl! My owl!”
Mother: “What?” She talks to the bin man and asks for the owl. Bin
man retrieves it and returns it.
Boy: “My owl!” and holds it protectively to his chest.
They walk home together. He puts the owl on his desk. Taps it to
talk but it stands mute. He taps it again. “Sign to me! Come on!” Owl
remains mute. He taps it again and gives up and starts writing, sadly.
Owl: winks. “Hello. I’ll help you in your reading and writing.”
Boy: “Great! I want help writing. I want to get good marks at school.”
Owl: “OK, go to the bookshelf and read. Learn more. Use your
computer to research.”
The boy learns. Time passes. There’s a photo of him wearing his
mortarboard and the owl is on his shoulder. He’s holding his degree.
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Rachel Sutton-Spence

The Role of Sign Language Narratives in

Abstract: This article describes the role of sign language narratives

Story telling in an y community is an important way to pass on

Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 47, No. 3, 2010

linguistic, and social identities. Although the focus here is on the

Clive’s comment shows the cultural power of language as language. Al-

to participate in community storytelling after they leave school, thus

Socio-historical Context of BSL Narratives

was believed that signing would hinder their acquisition of English.

Sign Language and Deaf Identity

Richard Carter’s report of a conversation with some eleven-year-old deaf

“No I’m not. I’m hearing.”

Hal Draper also commented on this:

Narratives of Personal Experience

Scollon and Scollon distinguish ways of learning among traditional

Nigel Howard’s description of the role of these personal experience

Paul’s story of discovering on the bus that he was deaf is an example

(2003)—the Deaf character triumphs in some small way over the

Folkloric and Fairy Tales in English and BSL

These modifications to traditional folktales are mostly recent. Clark

Existing traditional stories in BSL are important for children’s general

BSL Fantasy Stories and Deaf Identity

variety might not normally be considered folklore, but many scholars of

Deaf and Hearing Characters in BSL Narratives

Richard Carter remarked in relation to the stories he tells deaf chil-

In both the stories under consideration here, deafness creates grounds

in relation to the concept of identity; the one used to mean “identifying

as information gatekeepers gives them considerable power (Stone

The Value of Sign Language, Writing, and Speech

Consequently, deaf children often learn to do things that hearing

The Value of Accepting One’s Deafness

Language and Structure in BSL Stories

repertoires of stories appropriate for adults, too. The form of BSL in

Figure 2: Visual description of the teacher—hair in a bun, glasses, bosom, waist,

example, while many English narratives are structured so that events

Stephen Ryan (1993) has identified the repeated symmetrical

in exactly the same posture as he attempts to copy her whole behavior,

Paul Scott, “The Deaf Man on the Plane”

Richard Carter, “The Owl Interpreter”

In order to keep a flavor of the richness of character shift in this story

Asleep in bed. Breathing softly.

Teacher: (center) “You.”

Boy: “I want to go to school now! All my friends will be signing

Sutton-Spence, Rachel, and Donna Jo Napoli

Rachel Sutton-Spence is Reader in Deaf Studies at the Graduate

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