Geographic variation & Schoolisation: Deaf people tend to congregate in towns where there are schools for the Deaf. Here they are usually taught either a locally conventionalised form of SASL, or a version in line with the signing tradition followed by the school. The result is a group of SASL users with clear localised use. Additionally, Deaf communities only allocate name signs to places that are relevant to them. As a result, participants from a certain site might know all the same place name signs, and for the same places. There are schools for the Deaf in all the research sites (Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Phuthaditjhaba and Thaba ‘Nchu).
Geographic variation: Signs are conventionalised by local Deaf communities, i.e., they determine what signs and signing styles are acceptable by informal consensus. Because communities form in set locations, specific ways of using language can be linked to particular places. Therefore, if a participant knows a place name sign that differs from the signs provided by the rest of the group from the research site, it might be because they learned it in another location.
Language contact: Inevitably, the other languages that individuals are exposed to influence the way they use their native or prominent language. For example, language(culture)-specific idiomatic expressions in the spoken language used in the home might be translated to SASL. Participants who are exposed to other languages in which those specific expressions do not exist, will not know the SASL translation. Places often had multiple names in different spoken languages. A comparison between home language, place names in that language, and the variants that the participant know could be evidence of language contact.
Diachronic variation: Language is affected by developments that circumvent generational frames. For example, it will be interesting to track when/if changes to official (spoken) place names influence place name signs.
Generational variation: Different generations are subjected to distinct experiences – events, paradigms, trends, etc. These all affect language use, including on place names. At what point will the younger generation’s increasing preference for initialisation reflect in place name signs?