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42 Chapter 3 Subjects and Signing Samples in the Study Subjects’ social characteristics (education, family, race, generation, and communication background) were taken into consideration, and the subjects were grouped into eight social groups on the basis of three social characteristics: generation (younger and older), race (Black and White), and age of ASL acquisition (native and nonnative). The purpose of grouping the subjects was to attain homogeneity based on social factors, and we used this social factor as a predictor for judgments of the signing types. To have multiple assessments of the subjects’ perceptions of signing types and their attitudes toward them, the study was divided into four parts: (1) perceptions of signing types, (2) effects of social information on signing perception, (3) the evaluation of signing, and (4) the description of signing. Part 1 contained four analyses of the frequencies of subjects ’ ASL and non-ASL responses on all signing types (i.e., Strong ASL, Mostly ASL, Mixed, and Non-ASL): the first two analyses were done on the responses of all subjects as a whole; the second set of analyses were done on the collective responses of the social groups; and the last analysis was a cross-comparison of the responses of the social groups of subjects on each signing type. Part 2 contained a single analysis on the effect of the signers’ imagined social characteristics on all subjects’ perceptions of the signing types. The response data collected in the second part of the study with the explicit social information of the signers were compared with the response data collected in the first part of the study without the social information. Parts 3 and 4 were based on the subjects’ evaluation of signing produced by the signers in videos. The third part of the study had three analyses: the analysis of the subjects’ sign-type responses (i.e., ASL, Mixed, and Signed English) on eight signers on videos and two Hill_Pgs 1-164.indd 42 11/14/2012 9:47:57 AM Subjects and Signing Samples in the Study : 43 analyses of the subjects’ evaluative ratings on the signers and signing in terms of aesthetic, purity, fluidity, leadership, identity, education, and intelligence . All analyses were nonparametric measures because the data were nominal. Part 4 was a qualitative study with the discussion of comments derived from the interviews with a small pool of subjects. The comments were categorized into specific linguistic features on each linguistic level from phonological to discourse, and comments that were paralinguistic or nonlinguistic were discussed as well. Subjects Eighty-four subjects were recruited via word of mouth, campus flyers, and e-mail in the Washington, DC, metro area. Subjects were required to be proficient or somewhat proficient in ASL. Their proficiency was determined only by the observation of whether they were able to understand the signing in the video samples. Subjects were recruited based on specific social characteristics: age of acquisition of ASL, race, and generation status. Subjects were paid $10 an hour for their participation. It was not possible to do all four studies in one sitting as that would require 3 hours. The subjects were given an identification code that indicated which sets of studies they were assigned to do. They did either a set of studies 1, 2, and 3 or a set of studies 1, 3, and 4. Most subjects did the first set of studies , while a small number of subjects did the latter set, which involved a qualitative study of the subjects’ description of signing in a small set of video samples. Altogether, the studies lasted 1.5–2.5 hours, but most subjects were done in 2 hours, except for two subjects who did the studies on two consecutive days to accommodate their schedules. The study focused on subjects from the deaf and hard of hearing American population with knowledge of ASL. For determining whether subjects were native signers, the age of 7 was arbitrarily used as a cutoff based on the entrance to school as first graders. Subjects who acquired ASL before the age of 7 were considered native signers; participants who acquired ASL after the age of 7 were considered late signers. Native signers could be people who were born to skillful Deaf or hearing signers and people who were born to nonsigning parents regardless of hearing status but managed to learn ASL at school Hill_Pgs 1-164.indd 43 11/14/2012 9:47:57 AM [18.116.239.195] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 16...

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