Title:
The Non-Manuel grammatical features of American Sign Language in orally and manually educated deaf adults
Author:
Kathleen A. Morrison
Committee Member:
Kathryn S. Copmann
Committee Member:
Bette Stevens
Committee Member:
Barbara Miller
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
1995
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
reformatted digital
Abstract:
Non-manual behaviors are an integral part of American Sign Language (ASL). These behaviors include the movements of the eyes, mouth, lips, nose, and head. Their importance stems from the extended meaning they add to the signs they accompany much as a speaker's intonations and inflectional patterns add meaning or emphasis to his/her words. These behaviors also play a significant role in communicating the grammar, affect, and emotions of ASL. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether deaf adults who attended a manual educational setting will have more salient non-manual grammatical features than deaf adults who attended an oral educational setting. Twelve persons who were divided into 2 groups were the subjects in this study. Seven of the subjects were placed in an oral group, and 5 were placed in a manual group. Each subject was presented with a dialogue and was asked by the investigator to use ASL throughout the conversation. The dialogue was utilized to target the non-manual behaviors for particular non-manual syntactic constructions (i.e., wh-word question, yes/no question, and the negative statement). The conversations of the subjects and the investigator were video taped. Later, the investigator scored the non-manual behaviors used for the wh-word question, yes/no question, and negative statement. The results revealed statistically significant differences between the groups for each non-manual syntactic construction and for all non-manual behaviors combined. This finding suggests that a manual educational setting strongly influences the salience of non-manual features.
Degree:
Master of Science
Level:
Master
Discipline:
Speech-Language Pathology/Audiology
Restrictions on Access:
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Identifier:
MorrisonKA-95
