Tok Pisin metalanguage: why is Sinasina Sign Language not tok (‘language’)?

Abstract

Linguists recognize that sign languages are highly complex linguistic systems which meet all the criteria used to define a ‘language’. My ongoing language documentation with the Kere community in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and their local languages, Kere, and Sinasina Sign Language (SSSL), suggests that the English word ‘language’ is not a direct correlate of the Tok Pisin words tok or tok ples, as the current literature suggests. Drawing on interviews and collaboration with Kere people, I explore the culturally specific concepts and functions embedded in Tok Pisin metalanguage, focusing on differences between tok, tok ples, aksen, and ‘language’. Unlike spoken Kere, SSSL is aksen, not tok or tok ples because sociocultural functions are core to the meaning of tok, which only refers to spoken languages, unlike ‘language’. Understanding these differences is essential for translation and for further research with sign languages in PNG. This analysis of tok, tok ples, aksen, and ‘language’ also highlights the reality that ‘language’ is not a universal concept and there is a need for more research to unpack what ‘language’ means across languages and cultures.