bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Subjective Assessment of Sign Language Interpreters
Authors: Strong Michael , Rudser Steven Fritsch
Published: October 2013

A group of hearing raters were asked to make a subjective evaluation of the signed and spoken output of 25 sign language interpreters, using taped samples recorded under test conditions. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) that raters would agree with one another, (2) that subjective evaluations would correlate positively with interpreter accuracy ratings, and (3) that subjective raters would be able to determine whether the interpreters had deaf or hearing parents. Results showed that rater agreement was high (0.52 – 0.86) but much lower than would be required between raters on an objective measure. Correlation between subjective and objective assessment was also high (0.59 – 0.79). Subjects were not successful at identifying which interpreters had deaf parents. Implications are drawn for interpreter assessment in general, particularly that employed by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.
Sign Language Interpreting in a Diglossic Context
Authors: Ebbinghaus Horst , Hessmann Jens
Published: October 2013

Aims and assumptions are summarized of a sociolinguistics research project on sign language interpreting, currently being carried out in Berlin. The authors call attention particularly to the problem of evaluation and invite discussion of that matter.
Perception of Sign Features by Deaf Children
Authors: Hamilton Harley
Published: October 2013

Deaf children age 6 to 10, tested on the discrimination of minimal pairs of ASL signs, found movement and handshape differences more difficult to distinguish than location differences. Between movement and handshape differences there appears to be little perceptual salience.
The New Deaf Poetics: Visible Poetry
Authors: Cohn Jim
Published: October 2013

Since the meeting of poets Allen Ginsberg and Robert Panara at the National Institute for the Deaf in 1984 a new Deaf poetics has emerged. The centrality of the image as the essence of poetry is the focus both of ASL poems and of the international poetry community. A series of performances by ASL poets and other activities linking poets have provided new data to support the universal, i.e. poetic, phase through which language operates.
From Sign to Print: A Case Study of Picture Book “Reading” between Mother and Child
Authors: Andrews Jean F. , Taylor Nancy E.
Published: October 2013

Early introduction (e.g. reading aloud and sharing a book as focus of attention) greatly aids the acquisition of literacy but for hearing parents of a deaf child these ploys do not come easily We have looked carefully at the practice of one hard- of-hearing mother with her three and one-half year old son and have identified fourteen strategies, in four large categories, that she uses. These seem likely to promote his future reading success, and some of them may also be useful for hearing parents with deaf children.
Deaf Haptic Behavior
Authors: Betines Mary Alice , Hall Payson
Published: October 2013

A field study of the haptic behavior of deaf school children found three essential types: self-directed, interpersonal attention-getting, and interpersonal emotionally expressive, also that the communicative role of haptic behavior varies with sex, age, and the presence or absence of spoken language skills. These results bear on the problem of preparing both hearing and deaf school populations for “mainstreaming” and suggest future research directions.
Eye Gaze & Communication in a Deaf Classroom
Authors: Mather Susan A.
Published: October 2013

Eye gaze plays a significant role in making communication effective. Eye gaze behavior of two teachers of deaf children is examined as it helps (or does not) to regulate turn-taking during story reading. Eye gaze signals inviting individual and group response are described in use to initiate a story reading, communicate with a particular student, invite response from any in a group, and to ask a question, use a book in class, and handle a distraction or interruption during the reading.
A Language-Independent Measure of Communicative Competence for Deaf Adolescents & Adults
Authors: Lou Mimi WheiPing , Fischer Susan , Woodward James
Published: October 2013

We present a conversation/interview measure for evaluating the communicative competence of deaf adolescents and adults. We also describe (a) the rationale behind its development; (b) its independence, by design, of the subjects language variety, channel, or intemingling of the two; and (c) its use in a study of 40 deaf adolescents, the findings of which support the reliability and validity of this “language-fair” measure of communicative competence.
The Acquisition of English Bound Morphemes in Sign Form
Authors: Maxwell Madeline M.
Published: October 2013

What is the role of perceptual salience in language acquisition? English represented in signed form has the same structural segments but differs in perceptual characteristics from English so represented The later acquisition of the syntactic morphemes aux and -ing by three previously studied deaf children has generally been attributed to the lack of perceptual salience in the signed forms. More extensive data from two other chil-dren of deaf parents reveal other differences in acquisition of -ing. ‘-s, -s, -d, and the particle to The conclusion from the new data is that the signs for representing these English morphemes have a very high perceptual salience but distortions in prosody that affect structure and meaning
Classroom Use of ASL by Teachers
Authors: Woodward James , Allen Thomas
Published: October 2013

Although increased use of American Sign Languagse in educational settings has been reported as a consequence of thirty years of research, there has been no confirmation of such use. A survey of teachers of 4,500 hearing-impaired students selected at random from a data base on more than 50,000 such students provides empirical evidence that ASL is still not extensively used in teaching. Of some 1,888 teachers so surveyed, 140 when asked directly replied that they used ASL in the classroom. However, a series of questions asking about specific communication behavior successively reduced this number to 25 teachers who may be using ASL in the classroom and to 6 who probably are.
Automaticity in Word & Sign Recognition by Deaf Adults & Children
Authors: Marschark Marc
Published: October 2013

Three experiments employed the Stroop task to investigate the automaticity of recognizing signs and printed words by prelingually deaf subjects Experiments 1 and 2 involved words for color and signs for color Experiment 3 Involved numerals, printed words for number, and signs for number. In all cases, Incongruent but irrelevant signed and printed stimuli led to Interference in reporting the color or number of stimulus elements, and thus indicated automatic semantic access to the meanings of words and of signs by subjects as early as age eleven. Surprisingly, however, printed words consistently created significantly more interference than did signs. Possible explanations and Implications of these findings are discussed.
Holistic Judgement of Texts by Deaf and ESL Students
Authors: Langston Cynthia A. , Maxwell Madeline M.
Published: October 2013

We tested whether readers without special training could distinguish (as some have claimed) texts written by deaf signers from texts written by deaf non-signers and by hearing students of English as a second language. Thirty audiologists, speech pathologists, educators of the deaf, and language teachers were asked to sort sixty compositions by students from these groups. They could not do so correctly but tended to attribute the lower quality texts to deaf signers. The findings reveal that at the holistic level texts by these three groups of writers evoke similar judgements, also that readers systematically underestimate the writing of deaf signers. It is important to realize that the relationship between written English abilities and language background is not a simple one. Holistic judgements may be more important than discrete analyses for telling us how well writers communicate in the main.
Interpreters’ Recognition of Structure & Meaning
Authors: Ingram Robert M.
Published: October 2013

This paper describes an experiment in simultaneous interpretation. Interpreters as subjects performed three tasks, listening, interpreting (from spoken English into ASL), and transliterating (i.e rendering a spoken Input into fingerspelled words or signs for words, keeping the precise order of the original). After each task they completed two recognition tests--one for surface syntactic form and one for meaning Results revealed a significant difference between interpreters working between a signed language and a spoken language and interpreters working between two spoken languages. The results have a bearing on reinforcement vs. interferencee in short term memory.
The Alphabetic Principle & Fingerspelling
Authors: Maxwell Madeline M.
Published: October 2013

Examination of a profoundly deaf child’s fingerspelling in more than 100 hours of interaction videotaped at intervals over six years reveals a gradual acquisition of the rules for fingerspelling and knowledge of the relation of fingerspelling to signs and to printed and spoken words. Some similarity is found to the (written) spelling of pre-school children who develop their own orthography (Read 1975). This case study of finger-spelling development may provide clues to the role of hearing in language and to the acquisition of a spoken-written language by those who cannot hear it.
The Reception of Signs in Peripheral Vision by Deaf Persons
Authors: Swisher M. Virginia , Christie Karen , Miller Sandra L.
Published: October 2013

To test whether deaf persons can read signs in peripheral vision, 12 profoundly deaf students, aged 15 to 18, in a residential school for the deaf, were seated between two signers, who presented common signs in random turns. Subjects responded by signing back to a video-camera, on which they were to fix their gaze. The tape recorded their responses as well as their eye movements, if any. Twenty-four signs were presented in each of two conditions: with the stimulus signs between 45° and 61° in the periphery, and with the signs between 61° and 77°. Mean performances, respectively, were 79.7% and 68%. The results support the supposition that peripheral vision may be linguistically and communicatively useful for deaf people, particularly as signs in isolation may be more difficult to read than signs in discourse.
The Role of Fingerspelling in Simultaneous Communication
Authors: Akamatsu C. Tane , Stewart David A.
Published: October 2013

This paper is intended to raise researchers’ and teachers’ awareness of fingerspelling as an important part of signed communication. Five trained teachers of deaf children were videotaped, and their fingerspelled utterances were transcribed and analyzed for form, content, and use. The data showed that these teachers did not fingerspell often, but when they did they sought to express a specific English word. The clarity of the fingerspelled utterances varied greatly, ranging from whole word gestalts to words wherein individual letters could be discerned. Implications of these findings are drawn and several hypotheses suggestions are made about the use of fingerspelling in total communication programs.
A Signing Deaf Child’s Use of Speech
Authors: Maxwell Madeline M.
Published: October 2013

Speech and its function were studied (1;6 to 7;5) in a deaf child with deaf signing and speaking parents. At first, before age 3, imitation of facial speech behavior, speech-readable speech, and vocal speech were attempted but little: switching modes (sign to speech; speech to sign) was used early for clarification and emphasis; English functors were spoken before they were signed. Speech behavior assumed considerable importance after age 5; new words entered the child’s lexicon through speechreading, and she learned to adjust mode to language code and to listener needs for flexible communication.
American Sign Language: The Phonological Base
Authors: Liddell Scott K. , Johnson Robert E.
Published: October 2013

This paper has the ambitious goal of outlining the phonological structures and processes we have analyzed in American Sign Language (ASL). In order to do this we have divided the paper into five parts. In section 1 we detail the types of sequential phenomena found in the production of individual signs, allowing us to argue that ASL signs are composed of sequences of phonological segments, just as are words in spoken languages. Section 2 provides the details of a segmental phonetic transcription system. Using the descriptions made available by the transcription system, Section 3 briefly discusses both paradigmatic and syntagmatic contrast in ASL signs. Section 4 deals with the various types of phonological processes at work in the language, processes remarkable in their similarity to phonological processes found in spoken languages. We conclude the paper with an overview of the major typed of phonological effects of ASL’s rich system of morphological processes.

We realize that the majority of readers will come to this paper with neither sign language proficiency nor a knowledge of sign language structure. As a result, many will encounter reference to ASL signs without knowing their form. Although we have been unable to illustrate all the examples, we hope we have provided sufficient illustrations to make the paper more accessible.
What Name Signs Can Tell Us About Deaf Culture
Authors: Mindess Anna
Published: October 2013

Twenty deaf people were interviewed about name signs and their use. Their responses point to underlying cultural values expressed in name signs and also provide practical information about the making and bestowing of name signs, changing one’s name sign, and evolution in the name sign system.
The Effects of Morphological Complexity on Phonological Simplification in ASL
Authors: Schick Brenda S.
Published: October 2013

Researchers have observed that children learning American Sign Language produce incorrect handshapes when they attempt to sign multi-morphemic classifier predicates. Classifiers use distinctive handshapes for morphemes selected to categorize the referent noun. Previous reports suggest that the earliest handshapes children use in forming classifiers reflect stages of their handshape acquisition that are determined by anatomical and cognitive complexity. In this study a conversational game prompted 24 children to produce three types of multi-morphemic classifier predicates. Results indicate that handshape production is influenced both by morphological complexity and by factors more appropriately viewed as syntactic. Handshape errors produced do not support predictions based on anatomical complexity alone.
Motor Learning in Sign Language Students
Authors: Lupton Linda K. , Zelaznik Howard N.
Published: October 2013

We examined the changes in movement trajectories of two initially naive students from near the beginning until the end of an introductory course in American Sign Language. The movement patterns increased in speed, symmetry, replicability, and grew more constrained in movement amplitude as the semester progressed. Analysis of phase portraits (graphs of displacement versus velocity) revealed increasing limit-cycle behavior for complicated two-handed signs over the testing sessions. One-handed signs, however, exhibited limit-cycle behavior from the first session.
Developmental Effects on the Reception of Signs in Peripheral Vision by Deaf Students
Authors: Swisher M. Virginia
Published: October 2013

Like the 15-to 18-year-old deaf students tested previously, younger students (8-12 years) in a residential program can identify signs in isolation presented well into the periphery by live signers. Combined analysis of the data from both age groups revealed a significant effect of age on performance and also an interaction between age group and performance on the three types of sign stimuli used; the face signs being more difficult for the younger children. Possible implications of the children’s abilities for the amount of linguistic input available to them, distractibility in the classroom, and the use of peripheral vision in educational settings are discussed.
Echolalia, Mitigation, and Autism: Indicators from Child Characteristics for the Use of Sign Language and Other Augmentative Language Systems
Authors: Bebko James M.
Published: October 2013

Indicators of potential success or failure of language intervention programs were sought in the language skills of autistic children. Mitigation in echolalia (change in a feature of the utterance being repeated) is identified as a critical characteristic. Because mitigated echolalia implies that the prerequisites for language are accessible through speech, it is here suggested that children with mitigated echolalia, or higher level language, are those most likely to benefit from therapies centered on spoken language. Children whose speech ranged from mutism to unmitigated (exact) echolalia have a more negative prognosis with speech-oriented therapies. An augmentative communication system (e.g. simultaneous communication, Blissymbolics) is indicated, particularly for this group of children with limited language skills. However, an even broader application of such systems is recommended to maximize the efficiency of intervention efforts with autistic children.
The Effectiveness of Three Means of Communication in the College Classroom
Authors: Cokely Dennis
Published: October 2013

The assumption in education of deaf students, for the past fifteen years at least, has been that simultaneous communication (SC) is the most effective means of communication in the classroom. Some justification for this assumption comes from research studies conducted during the past ten years, but methodological limitations of these studies, here reviewed, casts serious doubt on the conclusions claimed. Descriptive research over the past five years has lead some linguists and educators to question the effectiveness of SC and to ask whether, given the psycholinguistic demands of signing and speaking at the same time, more effective communication may occur if (hearing) people sign without speaking or speak and use an interpreter. A pilot study designed to investigate this question resulted in no unequivocal evidence of superiority, but because actual college lectures (not the usual contrived and rehearsed material) were used and notes taken by the students as well as their objective test results were examined, it appears that signing without speech does have notable advantages.
Comprehension Strategies of Two Deaf Readers
Authors: Livingston Sue
Published: October 2013

Strategies for reading comprehension used by two deaf college students as they discussed assigned readings with their teacher and classmates are here shown in examples categorized, tallied, and compared. Both were active users of strategies, and their pattern of strategy use was similar: interpreting, questioning, paraphrasing, and integrating were the strategies most used. The student reader who preferred expressing and receiving English-like sign manifested a higher proportion of inaccurate interpretations and paraphrases than did the student reader who preferred receiving and expressing American Sign Language (ASL), primarily because the former was unfamiliar with written linguistic cues and conventions of narrative prose, but also because of distractions from her personal experience. The comparison suggests that competence in reading is more closely related to text-based competencies than to the kind of face-to-face language the reader brings to the text.
Miscommunication in Interpreted Classroom Interaction
Authors: Johnson Kristen
Published: October 2013

Miscommunication or confusion can and does occur between deaf and hearing people when using sign language interpreters in university classrooms. In order to examine this I videotaped thirty-two hours of classroom sessions and with the help of colleagues transcribed and analyzed the spoken and signed language utterances for discrepancies between what was said by the hearing members of each class and what was transmitted to and understood by the deaf student. I found that numerous misunderstandings led directly to confusion on the part of the deaf student. These instances of confusion occurred with the greatest frequency when interpreters were unfamiliar with the subject they were interpreting and/or were required to interpret diagrams or verbal descriptions. The data also showed that the deaf students experienced difficulty looking at the board and at the interpreter simultaneously. In this paper I examine these two problem areas in depth and suggest strategies for reducing miscommunication in university classes.
Deaf-Hearing Interchange in South Africa: “On that day the deaf shall hear”
Authors: Penn Claire , Reagan Timothy , Ogilvy Dale
Published: October 2013

The study of sign language in South Africa has been hindered by the social, political and educational context in which deaf people find themselves in that country. Not only is there a very high degree of cultural, linguistic, and geographic diversity within the deaf population in South Africa, but these divisions have been artificially maintained through separate social and educational institutions as a result of the government’s policies of apartheid. It is actually more accurate to speak of the different “deaf communities ” in South Africa than it is to speak of the “deaf community.” The authors discuss factors that have delayed the development of basic research on both sign language and the deaf community in South Africa and present the findings of the first major institutional effort to study effective sign language communication between deaf and hearing signers in South Africa, the SimCom project.
What Makes Signs Related?
Authors: Hanson Vicki L. , Feldman Laurie B.
Published: October 2013

In a previous study (Hanson & Feldman 1989) we found significant facilitation, by repetition among prime-target pairs, of signs that share a base morpheme in ASL, and interpreted these results as evidence that skilled signers apprehend the constituent (morphemic) structure of signs. However, morphemically related signs share formal (i.e. physical) and semantic (i.e. associated by meaning) features as well as base morphemes. Therefore, alternative explanations could not be confidently eliminated. In the present study we tested whether the earlier results could have been due to repetition of (only) physical or (only) associative properties, rather than morphological similarities, which combine both. Using a sign decision task, in which signers made a decision about the number of hands required to form a particular sign in ASL, we found no evidence to suggest an influence of either physical or associative priming under the same experimental conditions that produced facilitation among morphological relatives. This outcome supports our earlier claim that deaf signers organize their ASL lexicons according to the morphological relationships expressed in ASL.
Door into Deaf Culture: Folklore in an American Deaf Social Club
Authors: Hall Stephanie A.
Published: October 2013

A Deaf social club in Philadelphia provides insight into the culture of urban Deaf Americans. In composition, connection with national Deaf organizations, openness to the larger community, provision for free and relaxed communication, a spirit more cohesive than competitive, and an informal mentoring structure to introduce new members to the culture, it helps to explain what members themselves call “The Deaf way.”
Processes of Elaboration: The Taxonomic Principle in Speech and Sign
Authors: McArthur Douglas
Published: October 2013

Any language or sign system may be thought of as a technology of communication (the product of a number of general human capacities) rather than the reflection of a specialized language faculty or cluster of language faculties. Further, the individual’s knowledge and use of language and other signs may be seen as dependent upon a number of general capacities. This technology of communication is elaborated through time, just as other technologies are. One of the major factors at work in the elaboration is the taxonomic principle: “similar meanings are expressed in similar forms.”
Deaf Folklife Film Collection Project
Authors: Supalla Ted
Published: October 2013

This paper addresses the theme of collecting and preserving the “unwritten” historical record of deaf people by describing several critical aspects of preservation and dissemination of historical film materials made by deaf individuals. Such film records are valuable for scientific investigation of minority group lifestyles and for use in the genesis, development, and demonstration of ideas to promote more general interest and understanding of deaf folklife and literature. To make all this possible will require systematic efforts to locate and preserve film in suitable archives. In addition, cataloguing is needed to make appropriate films or film segments accessible to researchers and other users. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a program, I describe a model film library project, a collection of films made by Charles Krauel and Charles Yanzito of Chicago, who document how deaf people lived in the Midwest during the period 1925 to 1940. The method of locating specific film segments in these films is described as a film indexing system that incorporates relevant information on cultural and linguistic aspects of the deaf community to make the film index more useful to those interested in Deaf Studies.
Kinship Terms in Argentine Sign Language
Authors: Massone Maria Ignacia , Johnson Robert E.
Published: October 2013

The deaf community in Buenos Aires, like deaf communities in other industrialized societies, is isolated linguistically and culturally and at once integrated economically with mainstream society. The kinship terminology of Argentine Sign Language (LSA) provides an insight into the cultural independence of deaf culture. In LSA, male and female terms are combined, and many terms are reciprocal. This stands in sharp contrast to the standard Spanish language terminology used by non-deaf members of Argentine society. The terminological difference substantiates the observation that deaf society is culturally distinct in important ways from mainstream society.
Sign Language, Culture & Community in a Traditional Yucatec Maya Village
Authors: Johnson Robert E.
Published: October 2013

A traditional Mayan village in the state of Yucatan has an unusually high number of deaf inhabitants (13 of about 400). The deaf people have a rich sign language, which is not the same sign language as that of the deaf inhabitants of the towns and cities of Mexico. The deaf villagers are almost fully integrated into the ordinary patterns of life, and appear to have access to the economic benefits of the society; deafness is relatively depoliticized. This pattern is explained by the fact that all hearing villagers are able to communicate well in sign language.
Knowing & Using Female & Male Signs in Dublin
Authors: LeMaster Barbara C. , Dwyer John P.
Published: October 2013

We examine two variations in the Irish Sign Language of Dublin, Ireland. Signers commonly refer to these sign varieties as “female” and “male” signs. Because of the historical link of these signs to school signs, the signers in this study were selected on the basis of age, sex, and social network. The sex of the signer seems to explain differences observed in the distributions of signers’ knowledge and use of the “female” and “male” sign varieties. We argue that the differences between women’s knowledge and use of “male” signs, and men’s knowledge and use of “female” signs result from differences in cultural opportunities to acquire full facility with both varieties.
What’s So Hard About Learning ASL?: Students’ & Teachers’ Perceptions
Authors: McKee Rachel Locker , McKee David
Published: October 2013

This descriptive study surveys 12 teachers and 72 students of ASL for their perceptions of difficulty in learning ASL as a foreign language. Students and teachers rate the difficulty of various linguistic structures in ASL. Results show that while they generally agree on which aspects are the most difficult to learn, teachers consistently rate the level of difficulty more highly than students. Students and teachers also talk about problematic sociolinguistic or affective aspects of learning ASL, such as overcoming cultural inhibitions, learning to interact with Deaf people, and the attitudes and motivations of ASL learners. The respective benefits and disadvantages of Deaf and hearing teachers are examined from the points of view of students and teachers.
Teachers’ Communication with Their Deaf Students: An Australian Study
Authors: Hyde Merv , Power Des , Cliffe Sid
Published: October 2013

A survey of Australian teachers of the deaf was conducted following the format used in the United States by Woodward and Allen (1988). A majority (n = 245) of teachers in special schools and programs for the deaf responded to the study and provided information about their classroom communication practices. Responses to further questions which asked about specific communication behavior were related to the teachers’ descriptions of their communication preferences. Results indicated that 65% of the teachers reported the use of speech with sign and that 84% of these teachers said they used the artificial sign system, Australasian Signed English. In addition, their use of Australasian Signed English was reflected in the encoding of the morphemes in test sentences. All but 4% of the morphemes in the sentences were correctly encoded. Although some teachers reported the use of sign language (2%) all but one of these respondents reported a standard signed English presentation with matching lip patterns when responding to subsequent questions in the study. These results are in strong contrast to the results of the Woodward and Allen study. This may be due to differences in the design and use of the artificial sign systems involved and teachers’ commitment to the system used.
Simultaneous Codes in Different Settings: Hearing Teachers’ Performance
Authors: Mear Kimberly Matthews , Maxwell Madeline , Bernstein Mark E.
Published: October 2013

Close examination of the simultaneous communication (in class and in informal conversation with deaf interlocutors) of two secondary and two elementary teachers showed that exact and essential equivalence between spoken and signed portions of 100 utterances per teacher was high (92%), non-equivalence low (only 8%). Although over 90% of the utterances contained at least one morpheme mismatch, between English and signed main verbs, subjects, conjunctions, and prepositions mismatch was low (0.9% to 17.1%). Morpheme mismatches appear to have little relation to the semantic match between messages conveyed in simultaneous speech and sign.
The Use of Australian Sign Language by Deaf People
Authors: Hyde Merv , Power Des
Published: October 2013

Australian Sign Language (Auslan) is a descendant of British Sign Language and is recognized in national and state language policy statements as a community language. Estimates have varied regarding the number of deaf people who use Auslan, as have views of what the features of this use may be. These data are essential for efficient planning and distribution of interpreting, educational, vocational and other services for deaf people. The present study used a range of demographic techniques to identify the number of deaf Auslan users and to examine the settings in which sign language was used. Over 15,000 deaf users of signs were identified, with the majority using the language every day in interactions with deaf and hearing people. There was evidence of strong social and linguistic cohesion in the deaf community but no evidence that signing deaf people live in a “ghetto” where they do not communicate with hearing people. There was, however, evidence of high levels of unemployment and underemployment among deaf respondents to the study. The implications of the findings are discussed.
The Bilingual & the Bicultural Person In the Hearing & in the Deaf World
Authors: Grosjean François
Published: October 2013

If we define the bilingual as a person who uses two or more languages (or dialects) in everyday life, then most Deaf people who sign and who use the majority language regularly (in its written form, for example) are bilingual. Deaf bilinguals share many similarities with hearing bilinguals (their diversity, the perception they have of their own bilingualism, their use of various language modes, etc.) but they are also characterized by a number of specificities (the lack of recognition of their bilingual status, the maintenance over time of their languages, the competence they have in certain language skills, their varying patterns of language knowledge and use, etc.). As concerns the bicultural, whom we can define as a person who lives in two or more cultures, who adapts to each and who blends aspects of each, there is little doubt that many Deaf are indeed bicultural. Some of the implications for the bilingual and bicultural education of Deaf children that emerge from these considerations are discussed in the paper.
Memory Span for Signs & Digits Forward & Backward in Beginning Level ASL Students
Authors: Hoemann Harry W. , Blama Linda S.
Published: October 2013

Thirty-six hearing college students with approximately one semester experience in a beginning course in American Sign Language were tested for their memory span for signs and for digits forward and backward. The mean number of signs recalled by these hearing subjects was 4.44, slightly less than the mean of 4.9 previously reported for deaf subjects. The standard deviation of their memory span for signs was 1.11. Memory span for signs was significantly shorter than memory span for digits forward (6.94) and the mean reported elsewhere for words (5.5). The correlation between digits forward and signs (r = 0.419) was significant. Two conclusions emerge from the data. First, a short memory span for signs is evidence that signs are more complex than digits or words, possessing more features that need to be stored in short-term memory. Second, large individual differences in memory span for signs imply that teachers who require students to recall or translate signed discourse must take care to avoid a bias favoring students with a longer memory span. As long as students are covertly translating from a signed into a spoken language, teachers need to take into account students’ limited memory span for signs.
Deafness & Literacy: Why Can’t Sam Read?
Authors: Erting Carol J.
Published: October 2013

Success in teaching deaf pupils to read has not increased in many decades, but new conceptualizations of literacy, clear understanding that deafness is a human condition not a deficit, and recent research on how deaf families accomplish what schools often do not–all point to better ways of introducing deaf children to written language.
A Cooperative Bilingual Language Program for Deaf Adolescents
Authors: Neuroth-Gimbrone Cindy , Logiodice Colleen M.
Published: October 2013

In 1986, the authors were assigned to teach a group of students who expressed themselves most efficiently in American Sign Language (ASL). Because our methods of teaching them English were not effective, we explored other methods of teaching. The students who participated in the program are severely to profoundly deaf and of normal or higher intelligence (WISC-R, Weschler 1972); they were 14 or 15 at the start and are 18 or 19 now. All have hearing parents. Their greater proficiency in ASL than in written or spoken English was determined by formal and informal means. The entire program—its philosophy, methods, assessment measures, and data—cannot be described in a journal article. Hence we have chosen to focus upon initial steps that provided the students access to English via print. We describe here only some aspects of a much more comprehensive language program in keeping with recent theory; e.g. (Graves 1983, Nippold 1988, Cummings 1989, Cummings 1990).
Affective Prosody in American Sign Language
Authors: Reilly Judy S. , McIntire Marina L. , Seago Howie
Published: October 2013

This study addresses how emotion is conveyed in American Sign Language (ASL) and how it is distributed across the manual and facial channels of expression. Specifically, we examine both the production and perception of emotional expression in the manual channel by asking signers, first to produce sentences in different emotional conditions, and then later to categorize sentences according to the emotions expressed. Findings show that in production, sentences in the negative emotional conditions, sad and angry, exhibit distinctive profiles. In terms of perception, signers are capable of recognizing different emotional states from manual signals alone. Those errors that do occur, however, cluster on dimensions of intensity.
Phonological Deletion Revisited: Errors in Young Children’s Two-Handed Signs
Authors: Siedlecki Theodore , Bonvillian John D.
Published: October 2013

The omission or deletion of one hand from two-handed signs was examined in 9 young children of deaf parents. The patterns of hand deletion found in the early signs of these children were quite similar to those reported by Battison (1974) for adult signers. Battison accounted for the deletion patterns he observed largely by sign symmetry. Analyses of the present children’s deletions, however, revealed that the likelihood of hand deletion was also highly related to the type of contact the sign required. Deletion was most frequent in signs that involved contact with the signer’s body. This finding is interpreted as indicating that the likelihood of hand deletion in ASL is related to the amount of information about the location aspect of the sign that would be lost when the sign is produced with only one hand. Evidence for the phonological process of assimilation in the children’s early signs and the children’s accuracy for handshapes in two-handed (as compared with one-handed) signs also is examined.
Bilingual/Bicultural Deaf Education: An Overview
Authors: Drasgow Erik
Published: October 2013

Methods and approaches used to foster English language acquisition in deaf students have a long history of change. The recent use of manually coded English (MCE) systems has not produced desired results. Current research on American Sign Language (ASL) has proved it to be a genuine language with its own systems for making words and sentences. The acceptance of ASL has led to increased demands that deaf students be allowed to acquire ASL as a first language and English as a second language. Proposed methods for teaching English as a second language have been drawn from models of second language acquisition in hearing speakers. Because language and culture are closely related, these proposed bilingual ASL/English models include a cultural as well as a linguistic component. Several proposed models and related research are here examined and a pilot program for bilingual/ bicultural teaching is suggested.
Intergenerational Communication Modes in Deaf—Parented Families
Authors: Mallory Barbara L. , Zingle Harvey W. , Schein Jerome D.
Published: October 2013

We studied intergenerational modes used in fifteen family triads: hearing child, deaf parent, hearing grandparent. We videotaped semi-structured interviews of deaf parents and eldest hearing children, and surveyed grandparents by mail. All the parents were deaf from early childhood, and all but one had attended residential school. We found they used different modes in communicating with family members. Preferred mode with spouse was American Sign Language, but they switched to English-based modes with their hearing parents and offspring. Grandparents’ and hearing offsprings’ communication modes did not match those used by the parents in these families. The former relied on note-writing along with speech or used hearing grandchildren to mediate communication. Offspring used a generic form of sign with their deaf parents; their signing skill appeared to be related to both age and birth order. Deaf parents’ frequent use of signed, spoken, and written English is discussed with reference to literacy in the deaf community. Our findings raise questions about the effect of mismatched language modes on intergenerational relationships in deaf-parented families.
It Takes Two to be Literate: Literacy Interactions Between Parent & Child
Authors: Akamatsu C. Tane , Andrews Jean F.
Published: October 2013

One deaf child’s developing literacy from the age of two to the age of five is described as it shapes and is shaped by adult scaffolding. Literacy activities taped once a month over the three years were analyzed for (1) type of activity, (2) adult strategies to engage and support the child in gaining literacy, (3) strategies used by the child to engage and seek adult support, and (4) cohesive devices used in the adult-child dialogue.
Learning To Write: Social Interaction Among Preschool Auditory/Oral & Total Communication Children
Authors: Williams Cheri L.
Published: October 2013

The nature of the social interaction of young hearing-impaired children was studied as they participated in free-choice writing events in their preschool classrooms. The eleven children, six children from a Preschool I, auditory/oral class and five children from a Preschool II, total communication class, were videotaped and observed as they and adults participated at the writing table. Samples of the children’s written products accompanied the videotaped data. Analysis revealed that the Preschool I auditory/oral children interacted infrequently with one another as they participated at the writing table, but the Preschool II, total communication children interacted freely and frequently among themselves. Both groups of children interacted socially with adults who joined them in the writing events. The study demonstrates the need for further research on the impact of communication modalities and instructional contexts for young hearing-impaired children’s literacy development.
Sociolinguistic Differences: US Teachers in Residential Schools & Non-Residential Schools
Authors: Woodward James , Allen Thomas
Published: October 2013

Anthropological research on the US Deaf Community has presented the view that, for deaf children who do not have deaf parents, residential schools are prime places of early enculturation and acculturation into the language and culture of the US Deaf community. Residential schools are often the first places where deaf children see other deaf people and natural forms of signing being used for everyday communication. However, statistical research to support this view is lacking. In order to test the hypothesis that residential schools play a unique role in the enculturation/acculturation of deaf people into the US Deaf Community, the present study examined empirical data supplied by a large number of residential school and non-residential school teachers on their background characteristics and the forms of communication they prefer to use in their classrooms. Using this data, we tested for significant differences between residential school and non-residential school teachers and discuss implications of the research for the hypothesized importance of residential schools in enculturation/acculturation of deaf students into the language and culture of the US Deaf community.
The Relationship of Sign Language Varieties in India, Pakistan, & Nepal
Authors: Woodward James
Published: October 2013

Recent research has shown that sign language varieties in India and Pakistan are related. This paper examines the possible relationship of sign language varieties in India and Pakistan to those in Nepal by analyzing comparative lexical data from sign language varieties in the three countries. The paper uses a special vocabulary list for sign language research to compare for cognates across sign language varieties in Kathmandu, Karachi, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, and Bangalore. Results of the comparisons as well as implications for future research are discussed.
Nonmanual Negation & Assertion in Argentine Sign Language
Authors: Veinberg Silvana C.
Published: October 2013

The present work presents the first evidence drawn from linguistic research on nonmanual features in Argentine Sign Language (LSA). These are part of the language and not merely “background” behaviors. The data consists of videotaped, elicited short texts and free conversations in which changes in signer appearance are linked temporally to negative and assertive propositions. Each type of sentence was analyzed separately, and its nonmanual features described in detail. Different nonmanual behaviors occur with negative and assertive clauses. Although the whole constellation of features for each type differed, some of the features appeared systematically—head movement having a predominant role. Negative statements generally include a negative manual sign; nevertheless, a nonmanual adverb was required in some constructions. The sign DECIR-NO (SAY-NO) functions in LSA as an agreement negative verb. There is also exists an affirmative agreement verb DECIR-SI (SAY-YES), and a nonmanual affirmative adverb.
ASL as a Factor in Acquiring English
Authors: Daniels Marilyn
Published: October 2013

The results of testing 14 hearing children who learned ASL as preschoolers show that these bimodal, bilingual youngsters achieve significantly higher scores than average on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and suggest that knowing a sign language may have a positive influence on a hearing child’s acquisition of English.
Models of Deafness Compared: A Sociolinguistic Study of Deaf & Hard of Hearing Teachers
Authors: Woodward James , Allen Thomas
Published: October 2013

Currently two models are used in pursuing research on deaf people and their education: the traditional, pathological or medical model, and the sociocultural model. They contain very different assumptions about the nature of deafness and deaf people. The traditional medical model assumes that “hard of hearing” and “deaf” people can be grouped together for analysis. The socioculturalmodel of deafness recognizes significant sociolinguistic differences between people who label themselves “hard of hearing” and people who label themselves “deaf”, because generally they belong to separate cultural and linguistic groups. In order to compare and contrast assumptions of the medical and sociocultural models of deafness, in the present study we examine empirical data supplied by hard of hearing and deaf teachers on their background characteristics and their preferred forms of classroom communication. [Key terms: Sociolinguistic variation, American Sign Language, Language surveys, Language and education.]
Location, Handshape & Movement: Young Children’s Acquisition of the Formational Aspects of American Sign Language
Authors: Siedlecki Theodore , Bonvillian John D.
Published: October 2013

The acquisition of the formational aspects of American Sign Language signs was examined in nine young children of deaf parents. Videotape records of early sign language development were made during monthly home visits. The study focused on the acquisition of the three principal formational components of any ASL sign: location, movement, and handshape. Beginning with the children’s initial sign productions, the location aspect was produced correctly in most instances. The movement aspect was produced significantly less accurately than locations, and handshapes were the least accurate formational aspect. There was little change over time in production accuracy for sign locations and movements. In contrast, the children’s accuracy of handshape production improved significantly over the ages included in this study (5–18 months).