Professional Development Activity 1

Georgia State University

Applied Linguistics
Fall 2011
Jonathan Shive
For this professional development activity I attended a presentation about a linguistic
study into the feature of Black American Sign Language. This can be compared to Black
English Vernacular. The project was called The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL. Four
researchers worked to perform this research and one of the researchers come to Georgia
Perimeter College to present their findings. His name was Doctor Joseph Hill. He is an
Associate Professor at Gallaudet University.

The presentations discussed the fact that ASL does in fact have variations similarly to
spoken languages and that one of the variations is Black ASL. The research questions
they focused on were, what are the historical factors that influenced the development of
Black ASL, both social and geographical features. The second research question asks
what are the linguistic features that identify Black ASL as opposed to standard ASL.
The features looked into are 1) facial expression 2) sign/word choice 3) hand shape 4)
movement and 5) signing space.

During segregation times when schools for the deaf were established, there were separate
schools for deaf children as well. that is one reason for the variations within ASL and the
subset of Black ASL. Six southern states were chosen for the research program, they

include: TX, LA, AK, NC, VA and AL. They established two experimental groups; one
older cohort that attended segregated schools during the civil rights era and the other a
younger cohort that was integrated with whites during their education. These groups are
then compared to white Deaf signers and an analysis is taken.
The study focused on several ASL features within the two groups. The first
feature is handedness, whether a sign is using one hand or two hands for its production.
Black signers tend to use the more standard 2 handed signs. The second feature analyzed
is forehead signing location or lowered. Black Deaf signers use the location of the
forehead, which is more standard. The next is use is signing space, whether they standard
area of where signs are produced; both vertical and horizontal axis. The study showed
that both groups of black Deaf sign larger than whites. The feature that follows is
vocabulary sign choice. They compared the sign choices and variations of signs between
the groups. This showed that there is variations in their vocabularies. Finally, the study
looking into the incorporation of African American English (AAE) in to their signing.
Common words and phrases from spoken language is taken and brought into a signed
language. Through better access to media and interaction with hearing communities,
younger black Deaf individuals have more contact with hearing black individuals and
hence language contact.
This was an extremely interesting. I have recently taken Sociolinguistics just this
last summer. I learned a lot about language variation and since living in Atlanta I have
heard a lot about black ASL and have seen some examples of it. But its been neat and I
guess validating to see a study on it. It is validation in the fact that ASL is usually
regarded as a NON-language. So with it having a variation as well, gives it more validity.