What's Your Sign for Pizza?: An Introduction to Variation in American Sign Language

4. Phonological Variation

23 4 Phonological Variation W e turn now to examples of variation from the project on which this book and the accompanying CD are based. These examples come from the videotapes we made during a project that began in 1994. We traveled to seven U.S. sites: Staunton, Virginia; Frederick, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; New Orleans, Louisiana; Kansas City, Missouri, and Olathe, Kansas; Fremont, California; and Bellingham, Washington (see Figure 8). ! Clip 4. The project, as well as phonological variation, are also described on the CD. ! We chose these sites because they all have thriving communities of ASL users. In addition, Staunton, Frederick, Boston, Fremont, and Olathe are the sites of residential schools for deaf children. We chose these seven areas in order to represent the major geographic areas of the United States—northeast, east, south, midwest, west, and northwest. We videotaped a total of 207 people in groups. Some groups had 2 people; others had as many as 7. For the first part of the videotaping, people just chatted without the researchers present. Most of the people knew each other, so they could talk about shared experiences and current events. After they had chatted for about an hour, we selected two people from each group. Then we interviewed these people in depth about their Figure 8. The research sites 25 Phonological Variation language backgrounds, their educational and work experiences, and their family lives. We then showed them a set of pictures, asking them what their signs were for the objects or actions represented in the pictures. In four of the sites—Boston, New Orleans, Kansas City/Olathe, and Fremont—both African American and Caucasian signers participated in the study. In Staunton, Frederick, and Bellingham, where relatively few African American people live, we interviewed only Caucasian signers. We interviewed people in three age groups: 15–25, 26–54, and 55 and older. We chose these specific age groups because they parallel the developments in deaf education. People who were 55 and older were educated at a time when state schools for deaf students focused on oralism and prohibited the use of ASL in the classroom. When people in the 26–54 group were going through school, ASL was beginning to gain recognition as a language, and many schools were beginning to follow the philosophy of Total Communication, that is, signing and talking at the same time. Many of the signers in the youngest group have been able to use ASL in the classroom. We tried to get even numbers of men and women, and we videotaped both working-class and middle-class people. For our study “working class” means that the participants had gone to a residential school but had not continued their education after that, had settled in the area of the school, and were working in blue-collar jobs. The “middle-class” group consisted of people who had continued on to college after completing the residential school, had maybe left the area, but, if so, had been back in the area for at least ten years and were working in white-collar jobs. The youngest signers, who were still in school, were grouped with their parents in determining their social class. Of the 207 people in the study, 45 were from deaf families. Figure 9 shows the project at a glance. We collected examples of three variables from the videotapes: the sign DEAF, which varies in its location; signs such as KNOW, which also vary in their location; and signs made with a 1 handshape, which vary in many ways. We selected examples of these signs because they occur on the tapes frequently (and in everyday signing), and we knew that we would have enough examples of them for statistical analysis. From our observations of A seven-year project on sociolinguistic variation in ASL. (June 1, 1994–July 31, 2001) OVERVIEW OF DATA COLLECTION: Sites Visited: 1. Staunton, Va. 2. Frederick, Md. 3. Boston, Mass. 4. New Orleans, La. 5. Fremont, Calif. 6. Olathe, Kans./Kansas City, Mo. 7. Bellingham, Wash. Twelve groups at each site, except for Virginia, Maryland, and Washington (only Caucasian groups) African American Groups: Caucasian Groups: Middle Class Working Class Middle Class Working Class 15–25 15–25 15–25 15–25 26–54 26–54 26–54 26–54 55+ 55+ 55+ 55+ A total of 207 ASL signers (Each group consisted of 2–6 signers) OVERALL GOAL OF THE PROJECT: A...