Language Attitudes in the American Deaf Community:

Chapter 5 Effect of Social Information on Perceptions

63 Chapter 5 Effect of Social Information on Perceptions The second part of the study explored effects of social information on the perception of signing types, using the same videos used in the first part. It is inspired by the methodology in Niedzielski’s study (1999) on the effect of social information on Michigan subjects’ perception of nonstandard vowels in a native Detroit speaker’s speech. Niedzielski used two labels, Michigan and Canadian, to influence the subjects’ perception of the nonstandard vowels. Our aim is similar: to influence the subjects’ perception with different pieces of social information. Social features that were culturally relevant to the American Deaf community were introduced and might influence perceptions of signing types: family hearing status, kind of school setting, and educational status. Family hearing status indicates whether a signer’s family is Deaf or hearing. Common anecdotes and assumptions are that skillful ASL signers were reared with at least one skillful ASL signer (usually an adult) in their family and that signers producing mixed or English-like signing were brought up with no ASL signer in their family. School setting refers to whether a signer attended a Deaf school or a mainstream program. In the American Deaf community many people believe that skillful ASL signers spent a significant portion of their primary and secondary education at a special school for the deaf and signers producing mixed or English-like signing spent a significant portion of their primary and secondary education in mainstream schools. Class divisions, particularly educational attainment, could be a factor in the perceptions of signing. ASL is frequently perceived as a language used by less educated members of the Deaf community (known as grassroots14) and English-influenced signing is perceived to be used by higher educated Deaf members (Padden & Humphries, 2005, p. 127). For 14. Refer to Jacobs, 1989, p. 32, and Padden and Humphries, 2005, p. 127, for use of the term. Hill_Pgs 1-164.indd 63 11/14/2012 9:47:59 AM 64 : Chapter 5­ example, grassroots Deaf people are usually a working-class group and are generally uninterested in pursuing higher education, and their signing is perceived to be ASL heavy. Deaf professionals with college educations are perceived to use English-like features in their signing, for example, more fingerspelling of English words and English word order. It may be argued that the signing by professional Deaf people has more to do with the academic register of ASL than signing types or with some parts of their social background that influenced their signing. Methodology Subjects The number of videos was the same for each signing type, but the number of subjects participating in the second study had changed (n = 53). Out of 21 subjects who did not participate in this part of the study, 16 subjects were chosen to do the fourth part of the study instead of this one because the fourth part required a larger chunk of time; the rest of the subjects were unable to complete this part of the study for various reasons. All social groups except for the older White native group had fewer participants than in the first part of the study (see Table 13). Procedure Before beginning this study, the subjects were told in person that knowing the social characteristics of the signers might help them to enhance their language judgments. The subjects followed the same procedure as in the first part of the study by responding with “ASL” or “non-ASL” to the same videos, but this time the PsyScope program gave the explicit details of the characteristics15 of the same signers they had seen in the first study. 15. The dependent variable is the difference between two proportions of ASL responses from each subject participating in two different studies. The ­ independent White Black Native Nonnative Native Nonnative Younger Older 18 (17 D / 1 HH) 6 (4 D / 2 HH) 7 (5 D / 2 HH) 5 (4 D / 1 HH) 4 (3 D / 1 HH) 2 (2 D / 0 HH) 6 (5 D / 1 HH) 5 (3 D / 2 HH) table 13. Number of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Subjects Hill_Pgs 1-164.indd 64 11/14/2012 9:47:59 AM Effect of Social Information on Perceptions : 65 The characteristics were fictitious and designed intentionally to influence language perception. The selected characteristics, education setting (deaf school or mainstream), family hearing status (hearing family or deaf family ), and educational...