Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language

摘要本研究基于美国聋人群体的大型录像语料库，对美国手语（ASL）的社会语言学变异进行研究，探讨两个理论问题：1)能否识别和描述美国手语变异的内部语言限制，如口语研究中发现和描述的那些限制？2)同样，外部社会约束是否可以被识别和描述，什么样的模型最能解释外部约束？具体来说，传统的分层模型是最合适的，还是社会网络分析可以用来解释个体差异，以及是否存在与网络评分相关的因素，可能是美国聋人社区独有的？将在八个具有代表性的地理区域、小组会议和个人访谈中收集录像数据。被调查者将包括白人和非裔美国人本土或接近本土的美国手语使用者，在三个年龄组中控制社会经济地位。数据将被检查语音、词汇和形态句法变量，并将使用Varbrul程序描述这些变量的内部和外部约束。社会网络分数将为选定的线人计算，并与他们的语言行为相关联。本研究具有重要的理论意义和实践意义，它将有助于我们理解美国手语作为一种人类语言，在这个时代，美国手语教学在听力健全的成人和儿童以及聋哑儿童中都在迅速扩大。＊＊＊

9310116 LUCAS ABSTRACT Based on a large videotaped corpus representative of the American Deaf community, this study of sociolinguistic variation in American Sign Language (ASL) will investigate two theoretical questions: 1) Can the internal linguistic restraints on variation such as those identified and described in spoken language studies be identified and described for variation in ASL; 2) Similarly, can external social constraints be identified and described and what kind of model best accounts for the external constraints? Specifically, is a traditional stratification model most appropriate or can a social network analysis be used to account for individual variability, and are there factors relevant to the determination of the network score that may be unique to the American Deaf community? Videotaped data will be collected in eight representative geographical regions, in group sessions and in individual interviews. Informants will include White and African_American native or near-native user of ASL in three age groups controlled for socioeconomic status. The data will be examined for phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic variables, and the internal and external constraints on these variables will be described, using the Varbrul program. Social network scores will be calculated for selected informants and correlated for their linguistic behavior. The study has both theoretical and practical importance: it will contribute to our understanding of ASL as a human language at a time when the instruction of ASL is rapidly expanding both for hearing adults and children and for deaf children. ***