The Effects of Electronic Communication on American Sign Language
Erin Schneider, L. Viola Kozak, Roberto Santiago, and Anika Stephen
Abstract
�You want What on Your Pizza!?�
Videophone and Video-Relay Service as Potential Influences on the Lexical
Standardization of American Sign Language
Jeffrey Levi Palmer, Wanette Reynolds, and Rebecca Minor
Abstract
�He Said What?!� Constructed Dialogue in Various Interface Modes
Lesa Young, Carla Morris, and Clifton Langdon
Abstract
Word Order in Russian Sign Language
Vadim Kimmelman
Abstract
The Effects of Electronic Communication
on American Sign Language
Technological and language innovation often flow in concert with one another.
Casual observation by researchers has shown that electronic communication memes,
in the form of abbreviations, have found their way into spoken English. This
study focuses on the current use of electronic modes of communication, such as
cell smartphones, and e-mail, and how they affect American Sign Language. This
study explores Deaf ASL users� perceptions of the extent that these memes have
entered their signed lexicon. While the research focuses on social factors of
age and gender in order to compare the use of these abbreviations by specific
groups.
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You Want What on Your Pizza!?�
Videophone and Video-Relay
Service as Potential Influences on the Lexical Standardization of American Sign
Language This pilot study examines whether the increased virtual �mobility� of
ASL users via videophone and video-relay services is contributing to the
standardization of ASL. In addition, language attitudes are identified and
suggested to be influencing the perception of correct versus incorrect standard
forms. ASL users around the country have their own regional variant forms of
some signs. In the past decade, the spread of video-relay technology and
video-relay services (VRS), has allowed Deaf callers to be more connected with
other Deaf callers and interpreters across the country. This new technology
allows signers the opportunity to be more exposed to regional sign variation.
Awareness of regional variation and the skill level of video-relay interpreters
are possible factors that may encourage Deaf consumers to limit usage of local
or regional variants, replacing them with more standard forms. This study
illustrates ways in which the interaction between video-relay interpreters and
Deaf consumers across the country may be impacting the structure and use of ASL.
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�He Said What?!� Constructed Dialogue in
Various Interface Modes
This study analyzes the manifestation of constructed dialogue in ASL
narratives as dependent on the interface mode (i.e., face-to-face conversation,
electronic conversation over videophone, and vlog monologues).
Comparisons of eye gaze over three interface modes shows
how aspects of constructed dialogue are altered to fit the communication
mode. Research on spoken languages has presented strong
evidence of language variations as dependent on the interface mode
(e.g. via telephone). Our study here examines whether American Sign
Language also exhibits variation in response to the interface mode. We
discovered that the features of constructed dialogue�eye-gaze and
body (posture) shifts�are influenced by the interface mode. Specifically,
our analysis shows that eye-gaze shifts were less frequent in the
video monologues and even less common in the videophone interactions.
These findings reveal that American Sign Language indeed
exhibits effects of electronic communication.
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Word Order in Russian Sign Language
In this paper the results of an investigation of word order in Russian
Sign Language (RSL) are presented. A small corpus of narratives based
on comic strips by nine native signers was analyzed and a picture-description
experiment (based on Volterra et al. 1984) was conducted
with six native signers. The results are the following: the most frequent
word order in RSL is SVO for plain and agreeing verbs and SOV
for classifier predicates. Some factors can influence the word order,
namely aspect marking on the verb (favors OV), semantic reversibility
of the situation (favors SVO) and �heaviness� (manifested in the presence
of modifiers) of the object (favors VO). One of the findings of
the investigation is that locative situations are described differently in
the narratives and in the experimental settings: in the latter but not
in the former case the OSV order is quite common. This may result
from two different strategies of creating locative sentences: syntactic
vs. spatial strategy.
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