sign language in the southern US- slower?

Factual Questions
21

Quote Takin’ it to the people who know best QUOTE
Washoe, thanks. (and thanks to others)

One poster on the site you linked to said that YES, a signing southerner feels like a northerner is signing too fast, and the northern signer thinks the southerner is signing too slow. That’s what I come across in spoken langauge.

I’m both small-town and deep-south and talk much more slowly than the folks I encounter in court here in the midwest. Sometimes I get lost just because i’m not used to listening as fast as my fellows speak. Given that, I’m worried that the system could overlook a serious interpretation problem by not considering this issue with interpretors for the deaf.

And then, just for my own curiosity, I wonder: if slowness of speech crosses such a distinct line as that between spoken English and ASL, then what causes it? Is it really such a thing as slowness of the way of life? That seems odd.

22

I had a teacher who said that it was due to the heat. Seriously, that was his claim: that people spoke slower and moved more slowly because it’s hard to function very quickly when it’s hot. I have always wondered whether there was anything to that or not, but it seems a little questionable to me.

23

North Carolina monthly average temperatures range from a high of 88.3 degrees to a low of 27.3 degrees.

Ohio monthly average temperatures range from a high of 85.8 degrees to a low of 15.5 degrees.

Kentucky monthly average temperatures range from a high of 87.6 degrees to a low of 23.1 degrees.

Indiana monthly average temperatures range from a high of 88.8 degrees to a low of 15.8 degrees.

(Source: netstate.com)

These are the first - and only - four states I looked at, because of their distinct accents and relatively central location.

[Opinion, anecdotes, and idle speculation follow.]

Teachers are as bad as the rest of us when it comes to being idiots - worse, since they get to implant their damnfool notions into young minds with an authority matched only by idiot parents’ damnfool notions. I’m sure during his or her career your teacher managed to convince many, many students of this particular one.

Mexican Spanish seems, to me, as fast-paced as any English, and it’s fairly warm down there. My ex-wife is from Portsmouth, England, and speaks rather slowly.

I’ve also not noticed a difference between the accents of those living in cooler, mountainous areas and the warmer, lower surrounding areas. So it seems likely that regional and cultural influences are far greater than climate differences.

As far as movement pacing goes, I dunno, but I wouldn’t bet there’s a significant regional variation in the absence of empirical evidence. Individual variation probably overwhelms any regional variation - the slowest, most meticulous person I’ve ever worked with came from New York City, and the fastest, most high-strung was from Boston.

(Er, unless the latter is myself - and I don’t make a good sample, having knocked around most of the US both as a kid and adult, without stopping too long in one spot. My accent is that sort-of-midwestern “newscaster”, although my friends claim that, when highly agitated, I sound sort-of-southern.)