Adverbial Morphemes in Tactile ASL - Gallaudet University

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PDE – Steven D. Collins Intellectual Context and Literature Review _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ statements, conditionals, and relative clauses (Liddell 1980; Coulter 1978, 1979; Baker-Shenk 1983). At the discourse level, in addition to manual signs, there are also independent nonmanual configurations such as tensing of the muscles around the nose, around the mouth, eyegaze direction, and specific types of head nods that are used to provide turn-taking cues and back-channel feedback for regulating conversations (Baker 1976; Baker and Padden 1978; Nowell 1989). Clearly, non-manual signals are a pervasive component of ASL. They accompany single lexical items with the purpose of modifying the canonical meaning of the sign with which they occur. They are involved in the licensing of null arguments. Their presence allows alternate word orders and they are essential parts of sentence, clause and phrase types. Even at the discourse level, NMS are crucial for conversing in acceptable and predictable ways. The prominence of non-manuals in ASL strongly suggests that at least some of their functions must be carried out by some other means in TASL. 2.2. Language Variation In 1966, William Labov and his colleagues pioneered studies in which the focus was on linguistic variation in relation to a multiplicity of social and cultural factors. Ethnicity, for example, has played a central role in current discussions of identity, and was the focus of Labov’s 1966 study of New York City English among Italian, Jewish, Irish and Black Americans. It was also the topic of Gumperz’s extensive work on cross-cultural miscommunication (Gumperz 1966). Labov’s work illustrated that non-linguistic factors could affect the use of one linguistic form over another. In his groundbreaking study, he showed that while a strict linguistic analysis could not account for optional “r” deletion in the speech of Lower East Side New Yorkers, an analysis that took into account a person’s socioeconomic background and their speech style, could account for this variability. Since Labov’s findings, sociolinguists have found many types of linguistic variation that are correlated with external, non-linguistic constraints. These external constraints include social and personal characteristics, such as age, gender, education, and ethnicity, and also characteristics of the interaction in which speech occurred, i.e., the formality or casualness of the situation, the context (a bar brawl versus a 19
PDE – Steven D. Collins Intellectual Context and Literature Review _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ sermon), or the status relations between participants (talking to a lawyer versus talking to a Deaf friend.) In addition to external constraints, variation studies also consider internal linguistic factors and take into account their possible correlations with linguistic variations. Internal constraints that can affect variability include the neighboring linguistic environment, the grammatical category of the word (adjective, noun, verb, etc.), and the position of the variable within the sentence or discourse. While some linguistic variation can be accounted for by external constraints, or internal constraints, it is often the case that variation results from a combination of both. It appears that Croneberg (1965) was the first to systematically look at variation in ASL. As he traveled around to different states on the east coast, and to the Carolinas and Virginia, he used a 134-item sign vocabulary list and asked local people for their signs. Croneberg found that lexical variation correlated with geographic region, which was, and still is, influenced by state boundaries and the location of the residential schools for the deaf. In the 1970’s, there were several ASL studies that looked for correlations between external and internal constraints, and phonological, morphological or lexical variation. For example, Woodward (1973 a, b: 1974), and Woodward and DeSantis (1977) examined the variable use of three morphological inflections and found that the inflections were used more by those who learned ASL before they were age six, and those who had Deaf parents. In 1975, Battison, Markowicz, and Woodward studied thumb extension variation within certain signs. They found weighted linguistic constraints including a correlation between thumb extension and the bending of other fingers in the sign, the extension of the middle finger in the sign, and the sign having a twisted movement. No relationship was found between external factors such as the signer’s gender, the audiological status of the signer’s parents, or if the signer learned ASL before they were age six. Woodward, Erting and Oliver (1976) looked at the varied use of a sign that had two forms; one form was near the face and the other in neutral space, such as RABBIT. Results showed that New Orleans signers used the form that was near the body more often, while Atlantic signers used the other form. In 1976, Woodward found lexical variation when African- American signers and Caucasian signers were studied. Shortly after, Woodward and DeSantis 20
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Adverbial Morphemes in Tactile ASL - Gallaudet University

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