UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics Title A Microanalysis of the Nonmanual Components of Questions in American Sign Language Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7b03x0tz Author Baker-Shenk, Charlotte Publication Date 1983 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California A M icroanalysis o f the Nonmanual Components of Questions in American Sign Language By Charlotte Lee Baker-Shenk B.S. (Clark U niversity) 1972 M.A. O Jniversity o f C alifornia) 1975 C.Phil. (University of California) 1978 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Linguistics in the GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Approved: Date IfflSGEMMEU . IWEB17J8S3 \ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Microanalysis of the Nonmanual Components of Questions in American Sign Language C opyright © 1983 by Charlotte Lee Baker-Shenk Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ....................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements .................................................................................. v ii List of Figures .................................................................................... x List of Photographs ..................................... x ii List of Drawings .......................................................................................x i i i Transcription Conventions .................................................... iv C hapter I - EXPERIENCES OF DEAF PEOPLE IN A HEARING WORLD ................................................. 1 1.0 Formal education of deaf people: historical review •• 1 1.1 Beginnings .................................................................................. 1 1.2 Signing at the French and American schools 9 1.3 Spread of oralism ....................................... 12 1.4 Spread of manual codes ........ jg 1.5 Spread of sign language research .......................... 21 1.5.1 Reactions of the public and the professionals ..................... 23 1.5.2 Reactions of the deaf community ..................... 25 2.0 Attitudes of Hearing people toward Deaf people ............. 26 2.1 Effects on Deaf people ....................................................... 29 2 . 1 .1 P sy c h o so c ia l..................... 29 2.1.2 Linguistic .................................................................... 31 2.2 Recent changes ...................................................................... 32 3.0 Deaf community and Deaf culture ...................................... 34 Chapter II - NONMANUAL BEHAVIORS .......................................... 39 1.0 Introduction to a visual-gestural language ..................... 39 1.1 The power of eyegaze ................................................ 39 1.2 Locus of addressee eyegaze ............................................. 40 ■ 1.3 Mutual gaze .............................................................................. 41 1.4 Simultaneous signing ....................... 42 1.5 Distance between signers ................................................... 43 1 .6 Rest positions .................................................. 43 2.0 F acial expression and emotion: p o p u lar beliefs .............. 44 3.0 Linguistic research: an historical overview .................... 45 4.0 Linguistic research: a personal comment ........................ 49 5.0 Findings: lexicon .......................................................................... 54 5.1 Historical change: lexical role ................................ 54 5.2 Synchronic evidence: lexical role ................................ 55 5.2.1 As components of signs ......................................... 55 5.2 .2 As signs them selves ........................................... 55 5.2.3 Sign or emblem? .................................................... 57 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5.3 Morphemic s ta t u s ............................................ 59 . 5.3.1 Some examples ........................................................... 59 5.3.2 Treatment in the ASL literature .................. 64 5.4 Modifier ro le ............................................................................ 65 5.4.1 'mm', 'cs', 'th' . ......................................... 66 5 . 4 .2 'puffed cheeks', 'pursed lips', 'intense'.. 68 5.4.3 Co-occurrence of m odifiers .................................. 73 6.0 Findings: referential uses ........................................................... 74 6.1 Pronominal/deictic reference ....................................... 74 6.2 Direct address .......................................................................... 75 7.0 Findings: grammatical sig n a ls..... ................. 76 7.1 Yes-No questions ....................................................................... 76 7 .2 Wh questions ................................... 78 7.3 Rhetorical questions ................................................................ 79 7.4 Negation .................... 80 7.5 Assertion ...................................................................................... 82 7.6 Topics .............................................................................................. 88 7.7 Conditionals. .................... 90 7.8 Relative clauses ................................... 93 7.9 Summary ...................... 95 8.0 Tools for discerning grammatical boundaries .................. 96 Chapter III - QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES .................... 101 1.0 Co-occurrence ................................ 101 2.0 Salience .................................................. 107 3.0 Identification ........................................ 112 3.1 Different approaches to the problem ............. 113 3.2 Weaknesses in the research ............................ 116 3.3 Sentence types: summary chart ..................... 119 4.0 Distinguishability from affect displays ............... *122 C hapter IV - DATA BASE AND CODING PROCEDURES................1 2 4 1.0 Data base ............................................................................................... 124 1.1 Videotaped conversations .................................................124 1.2 Informants ................... 125 1.3 Instructions and setting ...................................................... 125 1.4 Selections of segments ........................................................... 126 2.0 Coding procedures ..........................................................128 2.1 The face .......................................................................................129 2.1.1 Reliability test: classification ............................130 2.1.2 Reliability test: location ........................................ 130 A. C lassificatio n .................................................. 132 B. Location ............................................. 134 C. Sum mary ...................................................................... 140 2.1.3 Reliability test: intensity ................................ • • 141 2.1.4 Coding of facial data ............................................... 144 2.2 The eyes ........................................................................................ 148 2.3 The torso and the h e a d ........................................................ 149 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2.3.1 The torso .......................................... 150 2.3.2 The head ....................................................................... 151 2.3.3 Coding locations of head/torso movements • 154 2.4 The hands and arms . • ............... 157 2.4.1 Signs ............................................................ 157 2.4.2 Regulators .................... 159 2.4.3 Location scoring ........................................................ 159 2.4.3.1 Guidelines...................................................... 159 2.4.3=2 Rationale ........................................................ 160 2.4.4 Transcription on timeline ....................................... 161 2.4.5 Contexts and translations • •• ............................ 164 2.5 Comment on time consumption. 166 C hapter V - OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSES ................ 167 1.0 Subject of analysis: questions ............. 167 2.0 Selection of data for analysis ................. 168 3.0 Manual behaviors in data: general description 170 3.1 Lexical question m arkers ...................................................171 3.2 Addressee overlap .................................................................. 172 3.3 Lexical marker: obligatory? ...............................................174 4.0 Nonmanual behaviors in d a ta ....................................................175 4.1 Lower face behaviors ..............................................................176 4.2 Upper face, head, eyegaze behaviors ............................. 178 4.2.1 Yes-no questions ........................................................... 181 4.2.1.1 Upper face ...................................................... 181 4.2.1.2 Head ...................................................................193 4.2.1.3 Eye Gaze .................... 195