What's Your Sign for Pizza?: An Introduction to Variation in American Sign Language

200 Pages·2003·0.99 MB·English

by  Ceil Lucas

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What’s Your
Sign for
P ?
IZZA
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What’s Your
Sign for
P ?
IZZA
An Introduction to
Variation in
American Sign Language
Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley,
and Clayton Valli
Gallaudet University Press
Washington, D.C.
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Gallaudet University Press
Washington, D.C. 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2003 by Gallaudet University
All rights reserved
Published in 2003
Printed in the United States of America
Cover photographs of Brenda Keller, Zavier Sabió, and Hatim A. Valli by Jonathan Kerr.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lucas, Ceil.
What’s your sign for pizza? : an introduction to variation in American Sign
Language / Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, and Clayton Valli.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56368-144-7
1. American Sign Language. I. Bayley, Robert, 1943– II. Valli, Clayton.
III. Title.
HV2474.L835 2003
419′.7—dc21
2003049210
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
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This project is dedicated to Clayton Valli, in loving memory.
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1. Some Basic Concepts about Language 3
2. Signs Have Parts 12
3. Variation: Basic Concepts 17
4. Phonological Variation 23
5. Syntactic Variation 41
6. Lexical Variation 46
7. Collecting Variable Data 54
8. Summary and Conclusions 57
Notes 59
Supplementary Readings 61
The Importance of Variation Research for 63
Deaf Communities
Ceil Lucas and Robert Bayley
Lexical Variation in African American and 83
White Signing
Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, Ruth Reed,
and Alyssa Wulf
Sociolinguistic Variation 111
Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, Clayton Valli,
Mary Rose, and Alyssa Wulf
Index 181
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Preface
W
elcome to What's Your Sign for PIZZA? An Introduction to Variation in
American Sign Language. These materials are designed to introduce mem-
bers of the Deaf community and the general public to sociolinguistic vari-
ation in American Sign Language (ASL). We have published a technical
report about the project, but researchers in linguistics also have a clear
responsibility to give back to the communities that have so generously
shared their language, whether spoken or signed. These materials represent
our modest gift to the Deaf community.
The materials are part of a large project that started in 1994. The pro-
duction of these materials is supported by the National Science
Foundation, with a supplement to Research Awards SBR #9310116 and
SBR #9709522. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for
this support. In addition, Robert Bayley's participation was partially sup-
ported by a UTSA Faculty Development Leave Award. We would also like
to thank Jim Dellon, Ron Reed, and Rosemary Bennett of the Gallaudet
University Television and Media Production Services for the production of
the videotape and Robert Hahn and Raymond Raney for the voiceover.
We thank Dr. Barbara Bodner-Johnson for her valuable feedback on the
materials and the organizers of Deaf Way II for giving us the opportunity
to do the Special Interest Group at which we pilot-tested the materials. We
are grateful to Ivey Wallace, Deirdre Mullervy, and Carol Hoke of
Gallaudet University Press for their role in the production of the materials.
Finally, we heartily thank all of the people who participated in the
project—without their generous participation the project simply would
not have been possible. Everyone who appears in the clips has given writ-
ten permission for the clips to be used.
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