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A Survey of Those in the U.S. Deaf Community About Reading and Writing Asl

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A Survey of Those in the U.S. Deaf Community About Reading and Writing Asl A SURVEY OF THOSE IN THE U.S. DEAF COMMUNITY ABOUT READING AND WRITING ASL by Jennifer Keogh Bachelors of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2008 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Grand Forks, North Dakota December 2013 © 2013 Jennifer Keogh ii This thesis, submitted by Jennifer Keogh in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Dakota, has been read by the Faculty Advisory Committee under whom the work has been done and is hereby approved. __________________________________________ Kathryn L. Hansen, Chair __________________________________________ Diana Weber __________________________________________ J. Albert Bickford This thesis meets the standards for appearance, conforms to the style and format requirements of the Graduate School of the University of North Dakota, and is hereby approved. _______________________________________________ Wayne Swisher Dean of the Graduate School _______________________________________________ Date iii PERMISSION Title A Survey of Those in the U.S. Deaf Community about Reading and Writing ASL Department Linguistics Degree Master of Arts In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in her absence, by the chairperson of the department or the dean of the Graduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this thesis or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Signature Jennifer Keogh Date July 29, 2013 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ ix LIST OF TABLES ...............................................................................................................x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... xi ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 1.1 Summary of the Chapters ..............................................................................2 1.2 Definitions .....................................................................................................3 1.2.1 Deaf ...................................................................................................3 1.2.2 ASL ...................................................................................................3 1.2.3 The U.S. Deaf Community ................................................................4 1.2.4 Oral ....................................................................................................5 1.2.5 Primary Language .............................................................................6 1.2.6 Literacy ..............................................................................................6 1.2.7 Survey Jargon ....................................................................................7 1.2.8 Prelingual and Preliterate ..................................................................7 1.2.9 “Emic” and “Etic” .............................................................................8 2 RATIONALE .........................................................................................................9 2.1 Poor Performance in Education ...................................................................10 2.2 Bilingual Education with L1 Literacy .........................................................13 v 2.3 Reading and Writing ASL ...........................................................................16 2.4 A Survey of the U.S. Deaf Community .......................................................17 3 METHODOLOGY ...............................................................................................19 3.1 Online Survey ..............................................................................................19 3.2 Videos of ASL .............................................................................................20 3.3 Filming ........................................................................................................21 3.4 Editing .........................................................................................................21 3.5 Web Survey Creator ....................................................................................22 3.6 Pilot Group ..................................................................................................22 3.7 Advertising ..................................................................................................23 3.8 Survey Layout .............................................................................................24 3.9 Questions .....................................................................................................25 3.9.1 Question Flow .................................................................................25 3.9.2 Background Questions ....................................................................27 3.9.3 General Opinion Questions about Literacy in ASL ........................29 3.9.4 Questions on Influence ....................................................................31 3.9.5 Specific Writing Systems ................................................................32 3.10 How the Results were Statistically Analyzed ..............................................35 3.10.1 How Single-Selection Questions were Analyzed: Goodness of Fit Test ........................................................................35 3.10.2 How Single-Selection Questions were Compared: Test of Independence .......................................................................37 3.11 Conclusion ...................................................................................................41 4 RESULTS .............................................................................................................43 4.1 Filtering for the Target Population ..............................................................43 vi 4.2 Demographics ..............................................................................................44 4.3 Hearing Status of the Participants’ Guardians ............................................44 4.4 An Account of Questions 5-39 ....................................................................45 4.4.1 Language Use ..................................................................................46 4.4.2 Educational Background .................................................................46 4.4.3 Community Involvement .................................................................50 4.4.4 Self-evaluation of Literacy Ability ..................................................52 4.4.5 Initial Opinions about Literacy in ASL ...........................................53 4.4.6 Others Use of Literacy in ASL ........................................................57 4.4.7 Value of Primary Language Literacy ..............................................58 4.4.8 Use of Literacy in ASL ...................................................................58 4.4.9 Influence of Writing System Design ...............................................60 4.4.10 The Influence of the Inventor’s Deafness .......................................61 4.4.11 Influence of Material .......................................................................61 4.4.12 Weight of Social Influences ............................................................62 4.4.13 Influence of Deaf to Deaf Communications ....................................63 4.4.14 Open-ended Response to Personal Desire .......................................63 4.5 Summary .....................................................................................................66 5 RESULTS CONTINUED .....................................................................................67 5.1 Evaluation of The Writing Systems ............................................................67 5.1.1 English Gloss ...................................................................................67 5.1.2 HamNoSys .......................................................................................69 5.1.3 Scriptus ............................................................................................69 5.1.4 si5s ...................................................................................................71 vii 5.1.5 SignFont ..........................................................................................72 5.1.6 SignSys ............................................................................................72 5.1.7 SignWriting .....................................................................................73 5.1.8 Stokoe Notation ...............................................................................74
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