She told the Guardian: 'The younger deaf community doesn't use these old signs because of a clear process of political correctness, in the same way that the hearing community no longer calls gay people 'pansies' or 'queer',' she said.
'But what the hearing community doesn't understand about sign language is that even though the traditional signs are now considered offensive, they are not producing a real-life insult when they are used because they are not just visual representations of a concept.'
The revelation follows a study by the British Sign Language Corpus Project which has been studying how deaf people use sign language.
They have filmed and interviewed 249 deaf people from eight cities across the UK.
Dr Kearsy Cormier, who was in charge of the three and a half year project, hopes that deaf children will benefit from the findings.
She said it would give deaf people a better understanding of regional variations in sign language. An online dictionary is expected to be created following the research.
However, there are concerns among the deaf community about these changing signs and new political correctness.
Gwilym Morris, from the deafness cognition and language research centre (DCal) at University College London, told the newspaper: 'We are nervous about this being seen as another example of political correctness because the changes are more about evolution rather than dictat of some body that approves language.'
Those who took part in the survey, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, were filmed in pairs and had to recount a personal experience, engage in a 30 minute conversation and participate in an interview on language awareness and attitudes.
They also had to elicit 102 signs known to vary across the UK.
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