1 RUNNING HEAD: Language of Perception in ASL the Language Of

RUNNING HEAD: Language of perception in ASL The language of perception in American Sign Language Karen Emmorey1, Brenda Nicodemus2, Lucinda O’Grady1 1Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience San Diego State University 2Gallaudet University Author details: Karen Emmorey Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience San Diego State University 6495 Alvarado Road #200 San Diego, CA 92120 [email protected] 619-594-8080 To appear in A. Majid & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds), Language of Perception: The comparative codability of the senses across languages. Oxford University Press. 1 Abstract We investigated linguistic codability for sensory information (colour, taste, shape, touch, taste, smell, and sound) and the use of iconic labels in American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf native signers. Colour was highly codable in ASL, but few iconic labels were produced. Shape labels were highly iconic (lexical signs and classifier constructions), and touch descriptions relied on iconic classifier constructions that depicted the shape of the tactile source object. Lexical taste-specific signs also exhibited iconic properties (articulated near the mouth), but taste codability was relatively low. No smell-specific lexical signs were elicited (all descriptions were source-based). Descriptions of sound stimuli were elicited through tactile vibrations and were often described using classifier constructions that visually depicted different sound qualities. Results indicated that iconicity of linguistic forms was not constant across the senses; rather, iconicity was most frequently observed for shape, touch, and sound stimuli, and least frequently for colour and smell. Keywords: American Sign Language, sensory perception, codability, iconicity, classifier constructions, fingerspelling, lexical signs Biography: KAREN EMMOREY Karen Emmorey is Distinguished Professor in the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University and the Director of the Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research interests include identifying the neural systems that support human language (both signed and spoken), the neural and cognitive consequences of bimodal bilingualism (acquiring both a spoken and a signed language), and mapping the neural reading circuits for skilled and less-skilled deaf readers. BRENDA NICODEMUS Brenda Nicodemus is Associate Professor in the Department of Interpretation at Gallaudet University and Director of the Interpretation and Translation Research Center. She has conducted research on translation asymmetry in bimodal bilinguals, psycholinguistic methods in signed language research, and cross-linguistic variation in interpretation. Her publications include Prosodic Markers and Utterance Boundaries in American Sign Language Interpreting (Gallaudet University Press, 2009) and, with co-editor Laurie Swabey, Advances in Interpreting Research (Benjamins, 2011). Email: [email protected] LUCINDA O’GRADY Lucinda O'Grady is Research Assistant in the Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience at San Diego State University. Her research involves studies of fingerspelling and reading, as well as psycholinguistic studies of sign language processing. 2 1. The language and its speakers American Sign Language (ASL) is the predominant language used by Deaf communities in the United States and English-speaking Canada. ASL is articulated with the hands, face, and body and is perceived visually (or tactilely by Deaf-blind individuals). In ASL, a closed set of handshapes, locations, and movements (along with grammatical features) are used to form a lexicon of signs (synonymous with words), which are combined in rule-governed ways to form its syntactic structure. Today ASL is acknowledged to be a natural human language; however, for most of its history it was thought to be lacking in linguistic structure at virtually every level (Liddell 1984). Until the latter half of the 20th century, signs were regarded as nothing more than unanalyzable pantomime-like gestures. Recognition of ASL as a language was prompted by the groundbreaking work of a professor at Gallaudet University, an institution of higher education with programs specifically designed for deaf and hard of hearing students. Based on observation and analysis of deaf students’ signing, William Stokoe and his colleagues published a book in 1965 that, for the first time, described ASL as a fully developed language (Stokoe, Casterline and Croneberg 1965). Initially, the claim that signing was a language in its own right was mostly ignored, and sometimes ridiculed, by the larger academic community; however, the assertion gained acceptance over time as further linguistic evidence came to light (Maher 1996). The recognition of ASL as a language was a turning point in how deaf people viewed themselves and their community, as well as a benchmark in numerous disciplines including linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, and deaf education. While there are no reliable figures, it has been estimated that there are at least 750,000 Americans and Canadians who are deaf and use ASL as their primary language (Canadian 3 Association of the Deaf 2012; Mitchell 2004; Mitchell, Young, Bachleda and Karchmer 2006). In North America, deaf people are surrounded by English in their daily lives, and therefore frequently communicate with members of mainstream society in English by speaking or writing the language. However, most members of the Deaf community use ASL as their preferred means of communication with other people who know ASL. ASL is a language of limited diffusion, and while mainstream society often views deafness from a disability perspective, many deaf individuals consider themselves as members of a linguistic and cultural minority group with specific norms and values (Obasi 2008; Padden and Humphries 2005). Of paramount importance to the Deaf community in North America is the use and maintenance of ASL. As expressed by Kannapell (1980), “ASL has a unifying function since deaf people are unified by their common language. It is important to understand that ASL is the only thing we have that belongs to deaf people completely” (p. 112). 2. Ethnographic background Little is known about the deaf people who lived in North America before 1817, but it can be assumed that some were born deaf, others became deaf due to illness or accidents, while some deaf people came from other countries either through immigration or the slave trade (Lane 1984). Deaf people born in North America probably developed a sign language within their own communities, while deaf individuals from other countries may have brought their indigenous sign languages with them. Because large numbers of deaf people were rarely in close proximity prior to 1817, it may be that several different types of sign language were in use in North America at that time, including contact sign variations (Valli and Lucas 1992). These variations 4 arise from contact between a sign language and an oral (or written) language, or when different sign languages come into contact (Ann 1998). In 1817, a hearing American pastor, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and a deaf French educator, Laurent Clerc, established a school for deaf children in Hartford, Connecticut, now called the American School for the Deaf. Bringing their various idiolects, deaf students were immersed in sign language at the school, which no doubt included some French signs used by Clerc. The need for students and teachers to communicate with one another provided fertile ground for developing shared norms of vocabulary and grammar – the roots of ASL structure as we know it today. As the students graduated from the American School, they established other deaf schools across the country, thus spreading the use of sign language and creating a network of schools for deaf children. An assault against deaf education and the use of sign language took place at the Congress of Milan in 1880 where oralism (speech-based instruction) was proclaimed the one acceptable method for educating deaf children since, it was argued, deaf people could only participate in society, develop morally and intellectually, and hold employment if they developed speech (Lane 1984; Van Cleve and Crouch 1989). At that time, sign languages were regarded as merely random gestures, limited to concrete references and incapable of conveying abstract and nuanced thought. Following the Congress, deaf teachers were dismissed from working in deaf schools and sign language was banned in many classrooms for deaf children. Despite protests by deaf leaders, hearing educators in favor of the oral method prevailed, and deaf people were systematically denied access to their linguistic and cultural heritage (Lane 1992). Despite the suppression of signing, deaf people maintained their language, in part through natural language transmission by deaf parents to their children and social interaction with other deaf people. 5 Over the next 75 years, in the midst of numerous social uprisings, deaf Americans slowly began to develop a collective identity as a group, due in large part to recognition of their language. The U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s resulted in legislation that protected the rights of various minority groups, including deaf people. Deaf individuals had more freedoms than they had in the past, made possible by technological advances, the right to interpreters, and changes in deaf education. In March 1988, an event occurred at Gallaudet University, the effects

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