Ceil Lucas

Language Diversity and Classroom Discourse

A suit filed in 1977 on the behalf of preschool and elementary school children living in Ann Arbor, Michigan alleged that the children’s home and community language impeded their equal participation in instructional programs and that the school had not taken appropriate action to overcome the barrier. The focus of the case was on reading instruction, and the role of dialect in classroom discourse was not at issue. There are few studies, however, that present formal linguistic evidence for communication problems in everyday classroom interaction in classrooms where children are dialect speakers. This paper describes such a study. It is based on extensive videotaped, audiotaped, and observational data collected in a Washington, DC elementary school. A wide variety of events was observed and recorded in a kindergarten, fourth, and sixth grade classroom, including whole group lessons, small groups with and without the teacher (both of an academic and non-academic nature), and one-on-one interaction. This paper briefly examines the issues and problems encountered in coding language functions, and discusses the overall project findings and conclusions, with examples drawn from representative portions of the data base. It is suggested that the development of functional language skills and of situationally appropriate language use precluded the occurrence of interference in the classrooms observed.

Lexical Variation in African American and White Signing

�This article, part of a larger study of phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical variation in American Sign Language (ASL), examines lexical differences in the ASL varieties used by African American and white signers. Our goal is to reexamine claims made about the correlation of lexical variation with ethnicity as well as claims pertaining to the course of language change (see, e.g., Woodward 1976). Specifically, we examine three questions: (1) Are there lexical differences between African American and white signing? (2) What are the processes of change reflected in the varieties of ASL used by African American and white signers? (3) How does lexical innovation differ from phonological variation in the lexicon? To answer these questions, we focus on the responses of ASL signers to picture and fingerspelled stimuli designed to elicit specific lexical items. 1 The elicitation task was part of a much larger study of sociolinguistic variation in ASL, described later in the paper. A brief review of research on lexical variation in ASL and African American signing demonstrates that the same kinds of issues that characterize lexical variation in spoken languages also characterize lexical variation in ASL, for example, phonological variation within the lexicon and occurrences of rapid lexical innovation related to changes in social norms.

Variable Subject Presence in ASL Narratives

This article examines variation between null and overt subject pronouns in ASL. In ASL, information about the subject is sometimes provided through morphology. Certain verbs allow changes in form (i.e., in their use of space) that indicate the person and/or number of the subject. In the case of “plain verbs” (Padden 1988), however, the verb form itself includes no information about the subject. Although we might expect plain verbs to require separate manual subjects, they also show variable subject presence. In this study, based on spontaneous narratives produced by signers ranging from 16 to 84 years of age, we use multivariate analysis to examine the behavior of subjects of plain verbs. All possible sites of pronominal subjects occurring with plain verbs were coded for a number of factors, including person and number, switch reference, sentence type, age, and gender. We also coded for whether the token occurred within constructed action or dialogue or within utterances marked by obvious English influence. Overall, results indicate that ASL subject pronoun presence with plain verbs is systematic and constrained by a range of factors that exhibit remarkable similarity to constraints found in studies of spoken languages. Results for age, however, need to be interpreted in light of the social history of the U.S. Deaf community.

Phonological variation in American Sign Language: The case of 1 handshape

This article examines variation in American Sign Language (ASL) signs produced with a 1 handshape, which include signs of nearly all grammatical classes. Multivariate analysis of more than 5,000 tokens, extracted from informal conversations among more than 200 signers in seven different regions of the United States, indicates that variation in the form of these signs is conditioned by multiple linguistic and social factors. Significant factor groups include grammatical function and features of the preceding and following segments, as well as a range of social constraints including age, regional origin, and language background. Two findings are especially notable. First, although the results for preceding and following segment effects show evidence of progressive and regressive assimilation, grammatical function is the first-order linguistic constraint on the use of two of the three main variants. Second, signers in all regions of the United States show similar patterns of variation, thus providing evidence that ASL signers constitute a single “speech” community.

The Effect of New Technologies on Sign Language Research

This paper first reviews the fairly established ways of collecting sign language data. It then discusses the new technologies available and their impact on sign language research, both in terms of how data is collected and what new kinds of data are emerging as a result of technology. New data collection methods and new kinds of data are illustrated with three specific case studies.

Bilingualism & Deafness: An Annotated Bibliography.

Introductory. This bibliography is the direct result of frustration experienced as I prepared a list of readings for a graduate seminar on bilingualism I taught in the fall of 1986, in the Department of Linguistics and Interpreting at Gallaudet University. Many studies in the field of deafness deal directly or indirectly with different aspects of bilingualism, but no bibliography unites all the various studies with any semblance of order. Although the frustration was originally mine, I shared it with my students, named above, inducing them to do much of the work. Our goal was a reference tool for students and researchers interested in bilingualism and deafness -a point of departure, a way to get a handle on a fairly diverse area of study. My job was to edit, supplement, and organize the final project, which is divided into six major sections:

The intersection of African American English and Black American Sign Language

This article reports on the intersection of African American English (AAE) and a variety of American Sign Language (ASL) used by Black signers and known as Black ASL. Based on an extensive videotaped corpus collected from 96 African American signers in the southern United States, we explore the conditions that led to the development of a separate African American variety and document its features. Starting in 1869, 17 states and the District of Columbia had separate schools or departments for Black Deaf children within already-established schools. The last school to desegregate was in Louisiana, in 1978. We filmed Black signers in six of the 17 states, in free conversation and interviews, and we also elicited lexical items. Signers were divided into two groups, those over 55 who attended segregated schools and signers under 35 who attended integrated schools. Of the eight linguistic features investigated, two result from the contact of Black ASL with spoken English: the mouthing of English words and the incorporation of African American words and phrases. Older signers who attended segregated schools mouth very little, while younger signers who attended integrated schools mouth as frequently as young white signers. The young Black signers also spontaneously produce and discuss words and phrases from AAE that have made their way into Black ASL, such as “Stop trippin’!”, “My bad”, and “Girl, please.” The presence of these AAE features in Black ASL shows the effects of attendance in mainstreaming programs starting in the mid-1970s, including contact with hearing AAE speakers, and an increased focus on the learning of spoken English.

Variation in Sign Languages: Recent Research on ASL and Beyond

This article summarizes early approaches to sociolinguistic research and the factors that condition variation in sign languages. The article then examines the methodological issues that arise in the study of sign languages before discussing recent research on variation in several different sign languages and dialects including Black ASL, Australian Sign Language, New Zealand Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language. This research shows that sign languages, like spoken languages, are subject to a wide range of internal and external constraints, some of which are particular to sign languages. We conclude with suggestions for future research.