This talk revisits the concept of foreigner talk register as a conventional variety of simplified language use which has been introduced by Ferguson (1981) by looking at the interactions between signers from different countries who do not know a shared sign language. The term of foreigner talk register usually is regarded by native interlocutors as appropriate for use with non-native interlocutors of a certain language.

As for the case in global Deaf communities, International Sign is used by signers in international contexts, mostly at international events. Over decades, the system has been emerged as a pidgin-like and sophisticated system with grammatical and lexical properties (see e.g. Supalla and Webb 1995, McKee and Napier 2002, Rosenstock 2004) which is mainly used at international events (see e.g. Murray 2009). On the other hand, the concept of cross-signing has been introduced by Bradford et al 2013, Zeshan 2015, Byun et al 2018) which describe signed interactions where communication emerges ad hoc between sign language users without a shared sign language. This talk present preliminary findings of linguistic properties used in conversations between signers from two different countries who do not use shared sign language(s) and know each other. The findings suggest that there is a continuum between foreigner talk register and International Sign. The following factors play a major role: (a) degree of exposure of International Sign, (b) metalinguistic awareness and (c) language attitude.

Finally, the paper discusses similarities and differences between foreign talk registers in audio-vocal and visuo-gestural modalities.