It's Not What You Sign, It's How You Sign It: Politeness in American Sign Language

7. Language Fluency and Politeness

7 Language Fluency and Politeness 188 Deaf persons are not always born to Deaf culture and ASL. In fact, only a small minority of deaf people are born to deaf parents. Although researchers commonly report that 5% to 10% of deaf people are born to deaf parents (e.g., Lane, Hoffmeister, & Bahan, 1996; Moores & Meadow-Orlans, 1990; Neidle, Kegl, MacLaughlin, Bahan, & Lee, 2000), in at least one study’s findings this figure is less than 5% (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2004). It is apparent that the American Deaf community is not only composed of native ASL signers. Therefore, native ASL is not the only way of signing found in the Deaf community. Introduction The signing in the Deaf Community varies from native ASL in two primary ways. First, many deaf people are bilingual in ASL and (written or spoken) English to varying degrees, and thus may be more language-dominant in either ASL or English, or may at times mix the two languages or code-switch (i.e., switch to different language usage) to more English-like signing (contact signing) (see, e.g., Baker-Shenk & Cokely, 1980; Kannapell, 1993; Lane et al., 1996; Lucas & Valli, 1992; Neidle et al., 2000). Second, some deaf people vary in their relative fluency in ASL. There are ASL signers who are native to ASL, those who learn ASL early (e.g., when entering a school for deaf students for the first time), and those who learn ASL later in life (e.g., when in high school or as an adult). To determine the effect that the age of acquisition of ASL has on politeness strategies, 3 signers completed the ASL DCT: a native ASL signer, a near-native ASL signer, and a late learner of ASL. All 3 are deaf female professionals who work as directors of programs in social service agencies, and have been deaf since birth. At the time of the study, these women ranged in age from their mid-30s to mid40s and lived in New England. All 3 were of European descent. These 3 deaf persons were selected because they represent the range of signers (in terms of age of ASL acquisition) found within the Deaf community. The results from the ASL DCT administered to these 3 different participants are compared with the larger native ASL group that participated in the study discussed earlier in this book. The results of these DCTs reveal that the treatment of requests and rejections varies across these language users. The comparison between the native ASL signer and the near native ASL signer reflects some individual variation. However, the results of the DCT administered to the late learner of ASL reveal an interesting mixture of ASL and English politeness strategies, which are particularly idiosyncratic. The results have implications in terms of how these signers are viewed by others , the degree to which their social meaning may be misinterpreted by others, and the value of early acquisition of ASL. The Near-Native User of ASL The near-native user of ASL began learning ASL around the age of 5 when she entered a residential school for deaf students. The politeness strategies used by this signer in the ASL DCT are quite similar to the native ASL signers’ use of those strategies. In terms of politeness strategies, she uses conventionalized indirectness, a direct request (command), and indirect rejections in the same contexts as do the native ASL signers. Likewise, the distribution of the other strategies such as hedge, direct apologies, indirect apologies, and give reasons parallel those of the native ASL signers. She differs, however, in her use of one specific NMM: the polite pucker (pp). She appears to overuse the pp marker in requests and makes no use of this marker in rejections. Although she uses the more severe NMMs as the native ASL signers do in requests, she differs in that she uses the pp marker in all requests except for the 189 Language FLuency and Politeness 190 Language FLuency and Politeness “complete a big project much earlier than expected” (+P, +R) context. And although she uses only the more severe NMMs in rejections, she does not use the pp marker in rejections at all, unlike the native ASL signers who use the pp NMM with involvement strategies such as offer/promise and presuppose/raise/assert common ground. Another difference of note is that she mouths English glosses for signs more often than the native ASL signers, especially...