Start/End Dates: December 2009-December 2011 Program Officer: Monya Ruffin PI: Ceil Lucas Institution: Gallaudet University Program: Informal Science Education (ISE)
Purpose, Context, and Partnering Organizations
Situated within the framework of their NSF funded sociolinguistic research, partnering institutions, Gallaudet University and the University of California-Davis, will develop and broadly disseminate a 2-hour DVD that builds knowledge and fosters community awareness, among informal and formal audiences, about the scientific structure and history of American Sign Language (ASL), with an emphasis on Black American Sign Language. Through this Communicating Research to Public Audiences (CRPA) grant, the DVD and its existing companion guidebook will: (a) link ASL to current empirical research; (b) describe the complexities of the science of language development (written and spoken); (c) detail the evolution of Black American Sign Language; (d) provide strong evidence that sociolinguistic variations and dialects are not unique to spoken languages; and (e) foster related discussions in formal and informal settings.
Participants and Settings
The project will involve ASL interpreters and hearing, hearing impaired and deaf local community members, students, and teachers; ranging in age (adolescents to seniors), geographic location within the United States, and socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. Informal settings such as local community, resource and cultural centers will participate in project dissemination efforts and activities. Formal settings such as postsecondary linguistics courses, deaf studies courses, interpreter training courses, and professional workshops will also serve as secondary venues for project dissemination activities.
Project Design and Deliverables
The research design, videotaped data clips and findings from the seminal sociolinguistic research involving data from 22 study groups at six different sites will be encapsulated and made accessible via the primary deliverable, a 2 hour DVD. Designed for various audiences, the DVD will present the socio-historical significance of the research, data collection and methods employed, and data clips of participants narrating their life experiences. Phonological variables, syntactic & discourse variables, contact phenomena, and lexical variations will also be discussed and illustrated in the DVD. Targeted public and professional audiences will be recruited to receive the DVD, the companion guide book, and other project resources. Project deliverables include a 2 hour DVD, training materials, workshops, and web site enhancements.
Project Outcomes, Impacts, and Evaluation
Through active dissemination efforts, the project intends to reach approximately 29,000 people. The project should: (a) increase knowledge and awareness about the scientific structure and history of ASL, and (b) provide greater access to content- including STEM content-through a broader understanding of geographical and social factors that influence non-spoken language variations, particularly Black ASL.
A mixed methods evaluation study will be employed to monitor all aspects of the DVD and training materials development, refinement, and implementation. Focus groups will be conducted and questionnaires will be distributed to collect data and determine the extent to which the project has effectively met its primary goal to share and disseminate its research findings more broadly to public audiences, with a special emphasis on informal audiences and organizations.
Broader Significance and Importance
The project will address a need in the field for research about the scientific structure, history, and socio-cultural factors influencing variations in non-spoken languages, particularly in Black ASL. Broad dissemination of this research could raise public awareness about ASL variations thereby, providing interpreters and a sizable portion of the deaf and hearing communities with valuable insights on ASL that could improve content accessibility among deaf and hearing impaired individuals. The project also highlights an important, overlooked component of American history. In addition, this project would further the ISE program's efforts to diversify its portfolio with respect to content (science of language; linguistics) and target populations (deaf, African-American). The original NSF funded scientific research project and the proposed dissemination efforts, also support ISE's commitment to fund projects with an aim to communicate NSF funded research to informal audiences and within informal settings.
With an anticipated reach of 29,000 people, the project?s website, local community events, and linkages with ISE organizations such as The Department of African American Studies Afro-American Studies Resource Center at Howard University in Washington, DC; The Stiles African American Heritage Center in Denver; and The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, NY and professional organizations such as the Gallaudet University Press and the National Association of Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA); will provide multiple opportunities for public engagement in the research and cross-disciplinary, cultural discussions about this work within the context of informal and formal education.
Concerning the intellectual merit of the project on The History and Structure of Black ASL: 1) it allowed us to expand our knowledge of the structure and use of human language in general and showed that the phenomena of sociolinguistic variation and dialects are not unique to spoken languages; it allowed us to broaden our understanding of how language varieties come about, be they spoken or signed; 2) it allowed us to expand our knowledge of the structure and use of American Sign Language as a full-fledged language with distinct varieties; Concerning the broader impacts of the work: The history and structure of Black ASL are topics that have been neglected and overlooked. This work, with its focus on the sociohistorical situation that made for the emergence of Black ASL and on the structural features that define it as a separate variety of ASL, has had a tremendous impact on the Black Deaf community and on the Deaf community at large. It has revealed the unique history of the variety and has provided a solid foundation for future research. The results of the project pertain to both deaf history and Black history. The project has drawn strong interest of many hearing, non-signers who were unaware of this piece of history. Since the project began in 2007, we have made 44 presentations of the findings in a wide variety of venues both academic and "informal" community-oriented ones ( see the project web site for a full list: blackaslproject.gallaudet.edu ). The findings have been incorporated into graduate and undergraduate courses on linguistics, sociolinguistics, Deaf history and Deaf culture, and have also been used in sign language skills courses ( for people learning ASL) and for interpreter training. There is a need in all of these areas for empirical information about variation in ASL including Black ASL. The Black ASL team did what they promised to do and the NSF support has been well-spent. The National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) honored the team with an achievement award in July of 2011 and Dr. Carolyn McCaskill was recognized in 2013 by TheGrio as one of 100 achievers. The project has created an archive of DVDs valuable to both the Black deaf community and the Deaf community. During the course of the project, six African American students and two White students served as graduate research assistants. They participated in data collection, data analysis, building of the web site, and the preparation of the manuscript for the book and the production of the DVD that accompanies the book ( The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure, C. McCaskill, C. Lucas. R. Bayley, and J. Hill, Gallaudet University Press, 2011. Book + DVD ). Their participation helped them learn about how projects of this nature are carried out and helped them with work in other courses they were taking. With the participation of Dr. Robert Bayley, the project included collaboration with the University of California, Davis. The project web site is blackaslproject.gallaudet.edu. It includes a description of the project, a list of presentations with power points, and video clips from the six data collection sites.
