Sociolinguistic Variation in the Use of Fingerspelling in New Zealand Sign Language Sara Pivac Alexander

Transcription

1 Sociolinguistic Variation in the Use of Fingerspelling in New Zealand Sign Language Sara Pivac Alexander LALS 583, Research Dissertation Masters of Arts in Applied Linguistics Victoria University of Wellington 2008

2 Abstract Sociolinguistic variation in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) fingerspelling to date has been primarily descriptive; research around the world in this area is also relatively sparse. Anecdotal evidence about NZSL tells us that signers age influences fingerspelling frequency and little is known about the effects of other social factors. The aim of the current research was therefore to investigate the relationship between social variables (age, region, gender and ethnicity) and the frequency and grammatical functions of fingerspelling in NZSL. This paper first discusses the various uses of fingerspelling and reviews existing overseas research on the relationship between fingerspelling and social factors. Data for the study came from an existing corpus and was videotaped conversation and interview data from 38 NZSL signers balanced for age, gender, region and ethnicity. All uses of fingerspelling were identified and coded for frequency and grammatical distribution analysis. It was found that social factors such as age, gender, region and ethnicity all influence fingerspelling usage, though the overall frequency of fingerspelling in NZSL is relatively low. Female, young, north, and Pakeha signers use fingerspelling slightly more than others. Furthermore, it was found that the distribution of fingerspelling forms in NZSL is constrained by grammatical category rather than being in free distribution. This research provides empirical evidence that variation in NZSL fingerspelling is systematic, enriching our understanding of fingerspelling and sociolinguistic variation in NZSL. 1

3 Table of Contents Abstract. 1 Table of contents.. 2 Tables and figures Introduction Role of fingerspelling Forms of fingerspelling use Frequency and distribution of NZSL fingerspelling Sociolinguistic variation Social factors in NZSL Sociolinguistic variation in NZSL fingerspelling Sociolinguistic variation in fingerspelling (other sign languages) Research Questions Research Method Participants Data Analysis Results Distribution of fingerspelling frequency Inventory of fingerspelling forms Most frequently fingerspelled item Use of ASL manual alphabet Frequency and genre Frequency and social factors Frequency, fingerspelling forms and social factors Frequency and ASL manual alphabet Distribution of fingerspelling across grammatical category Grammatical categories and fingerspelling forms Grammatical categories and ASL manual alphabet Grammatical categories and social factors Noun types and genre

4 5. Discussion Fingerspelling frequency Comparison of fingerspelling frequency in NZSL, Auslan, ASL Fingerspelling distribution by grammatical category Effects of genre on fingerspelling use Effects of social factors on fingerspelling use Frequency and social factors Grammatical distribution and social factors Fingerspelling forms Limitations Conclusion Directions for future study Implications of this study References Acknowledgments Appendices. 59 Appendix A NZSL manual alphabet. 59 Appendix B ASL manual alphabet Appendix C List of fingerspelling items in this study

5 Tables and Figures Figures Figure 1 Uses of the Manual Alphabet in NZSL.. 7 Figure 2 Distribution of Fingerspelling Forms Figure 3 Fingerspelling Frequency by Social Factors...33 Figure 4 Fingerspelling Frequency by Gender and Ethnicity Figure 5 Fingerspelling Frequency by Gender and Region Figure 6 Fingerspelling Forms by Region 35 Figure 7 Fingerspelling Forms by Gender Figure 8 Distribution of Grammatical Categories. 37 Figure 9 Distribution of Grammatical Categories by Gender Figure 10 Distribution of Noun Types by Genre. 40 Tables Table 1 Participants Data Table 2 Codes for Fingerspelling Analysis.. 26 Table 3 Coding and Analysis Steps.. 27 Table 4 Examples of Fingerspelling Forms. 29 Table 5 Examples of Fingerspelling and Sign Combinations.. 30 Table 6 Most Frequently Fingerspelled Item Table 7 Distribution of Fingerspelling Forms by Grammatical Categories. 37 Table 8 Distribution of Noun Types by Social Factors Table 9 Comparison of Sociolinguistic Variation Studies in Fingerspelling

6 1. Introduction The empirical study of sociolinguistic variation in sign languages is relatively recent (Lucas et al 2001; Schembri & Johnston 2004; McKee et al 2006). Within this research area, a small number of studies have investigated the correlation between sociolinguistic variables and the frequency and functions of fingerspelling in sign languages (Schembri & Johnston 2007; Padden & Gunsauls 2003). Mulrooney (2002: 4) maintains that fingerspelling is often overlooked in sign language studies and few researchers have studied this component of the language because fingerspelling is a small part of sign languages. The study of fingerspelling is nonetheless important because it supplements our knowledge about sign languages. The present research aims to identify the frequency and grammatical functions of fingerspelling in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL), and to examine the relationship between social variables (age, region, gender and ethnicity) and the use of fingerspelling. To some extent, this study will replicate Schembri and Johnston s (2007) study of variation in the use of fingerspelling in Australian Sign Language (Auslan) and also Padden and Gunsauls (2003) study of fingerspelling use in American Sign Language (ASL). It will also build on findings from a corpus analysis by McKee and Kennedy (1999), which reports the overall frequency and uses of fingerspelling in NZSL. The present study aims to give a deeper understanding of the sociolinguistic determinants of fingerspelling usage in NZSL, which will enhance our understanding of NZSL variation. NZSL, the language of the New Zealand Deaf 1 community, is part of the BANZSL (British, Australia, and New Zealand Sign Language) family of languages (McKee & Kennedy 2000). In the late nineteenth century, British immigrants imported British Sign Language (BSL) to Australia; New Zealand deaf children attending two deaf schools in Australia eventually brought signs back to New Zealand with them (Collins-Ahlgren 1 The term Deaf with a capital D represents Deaf people who use sign language and consider themselves as part of the Deaf community. In this paper, the uppercase D will be used when referring to the Deaf community, Deaf club, Deaf people, Deaf parents and Deaf families. As for the term deaf, this will be used with the following - deaf education, deaf educators and deaf children. 5

7 1989: 5). Although education was oralist at the time, the establishment of New Zealand s first school for the deaf at Sumner in 1880 provided a site for NZSL to evolve and be transmitted in the playground and dormitories (McKee 2001: 24). Since then, sites such as other schools (i.e. Kelston) and Deaf clubs have also been responsible for the development, growth and preservation of NZSL. The language has been influenced by other sources, such as the introduction of Australasian Signed English (also termed Total Communication) in New Zealand deaf education from 1979 and increased contact with other signed languages. Locker McKee (1994: 251) notes that the rate of linguistic change in NZSL has increased significantly towards the end of the twentieth century, and there is an extremely high level of lexical variation within the signing community. Today, NZSL continues to be a language in change and is more accepted and recognised as one of the official languages of New Zealand (McKee & McKee 2007: viii). NZSL linguistics research (Collins-Ahlgren 1989; McKee et al 2006) has proved that NZSL is a real language with its own grammatical rules and syntax. Fingerspelling is a small but integral part of NZSL, whereby English orthography is spelled out in a manual code. A handshape is made for every letter in the alphabet (refer to appendix A for illustrations of the NZSL alphabet). NZSL fingerspelling is the same as that used in the BANZSL family of languages but with a different history of use (McKee & Kennedy, 2000). Throughout this paper, fingerspelling signs are glossed in capital letters and preceded with the symbol fs-. Fingerspelling the word tax, for example, is written as fs-tax. If a common sign is made using the manual alphabet, for example daughter, this is glossed as D-daughter. Fingerspelling forms, either one-handed (refer to appendix B for illustrations of the ASL alphabet) or two-handed, are used by literate Deaf people who must understand English orthography and fingerspelling rules (Schembri & Johnston 2007: 320; Sutton-Spence 1998: 41; Maxwell 1988: 379). The relationship between fingerspelling and English will be discussed next. 1.1 Role of fingerspelling There is some debate about the role of fingerspelling in signed languages, in terms of whether it is non-native (i.e. borrowed ) or part of natural signed languages. Sutton- 6

8 Spence (1998: 43) claims that fingerspelling allows the signer to borrow any English word (and even a word from another language as long as it is written using the same alphabet). However, Lucas and Valli (as cited in Machabee 1995: 54) argue that fingerspelling can t be strictly associated with borrowing. It is a particular outcome of language contact, where a language represents but does not borrow the orthography of another. Padden and Gunsauls (2003: 26) also add that in ASL, fingerspelling is not just about representing but also signifying meanings to a sign. For example, a sign may be used and then fingerspelled, to emphasise that sign. Little is known about the role of fingerspelling in NZSL and it would indeed be worthwhile to explore this further. 1.2 Forms of fingerspelling use Fingerspelling use ranges from spelling out a full word to single manual letter signs, in which the first letter of a word is used as a sign (see figure 1). Fingerspelled words are predominantly nouns, mostly to refer to new concepts without a lexical equivalent in NZSL, place names and people s names (McKee & McKee 2007; Locker McKee & Kennedy 2005). By drawing on BANZSL descriptions about the uses of the manual alphabet, this literature review will expand on this range though this summary is not exhaustive. Figure 1 Uses of the Manual Alphabet in NZSL Uses of the Manual Alphabet in NZSL Full fingerspellings (include affixes) Lexicalised fingerspellings Initialised signs Abbreviations & acronyms Single manual letter signs (SMLS) 7

9 NZSL users may spell a word in full, to introduce names or concepts. Full fingerspelling is mostly used for nouns, technical terms or borrowed vocabulary used infrequently in NZSL (McKee & McKee 2007: 97). If there is no sign equivalent, the word may be fingerspelled and over time, a sign may replace it. To illustrate an example from BSL (also applicable to NZSL), Deaf people used to fingerspell fax because it was a new concept at the time fax machines were introduced and there was not yet an accepted sign equivalent (Sutton-Spence 1994: 219). Now there is a standard sign for fax in NZSL. Lexicalised fingerspelling (also called fingerspelled loan signs) is a regular sign formed from a fingerspelled word (Collins-Ahlgren 1989: 173), which may become part of the core native lexicon (Johnston & Schembri 2007: 178). Johnston and Schembri (2007: 179) state there are three types of lexicalised fingerspellings in Auslan: 1) single manual letter signs (SMLS); 2) lexicalised acronyms, abbreviations and others consisting two or more fingerspelled letters; and 3) whole English words that are fingerspelled commonly (fs-son for example). As NZSL and Auslan are related languages, these subcategories will be used in this paper. Sometimes words are spelt out partially (i.e. some letters are missed). According to McKee and McKee (2007: 97), partial spelling in NZSL is common and may occur because the signer may not know how to spell the word or s/he may assume that s/he will be understood without spelling a word out in full. Letters deleted from fingerspelling are mostly medial letters (Battison 1978: 186) and vowels (Blumenthal 1991: 94; Johnston & Schembri 2007: 183). Moreover, Collins-Ahlgren (1996: 81) observes that if the English word is long, the person signing may spell a few letters of the word then sign fingerspell rather than continue to spell the whole word. Acronyms and abbreviations can also be fingerspelled and examples in NZSL include fs-asb (Auckland Savings Bank), fs-kfc (Kentucky Fried Chicken), fs-tv (television) and fs- ID (identification). SMLS use the initial letter of an English word to create a sign, accompanied by English mouthing to give meaning, for example M-month, F-father and K-kelston. Movement of SMLS is often reduplicated, which means the fingerspelled letter is made twice 8

10 (Schembri & Johnston 2007: 323). In a study on BSL place names, Sutton-Spence (1994: 8) found vowels are under represented in SMLS due to hand-arrangements; for instance, the letters 'I' and 'O' are weak which means it is not easy to articulate strongly. In addition, signers often spell a word (mostly people names or placenames) then later use the initial letter of that word to refer back to it (Johnston & Schembri 2007: 180; McKee & McKee 2007: 97). The use of the manual alphabet is also illustrated in initialised signs (see figure 1). Johnston and Schembri (2007: 88) define initialised sign as one in which the handshape used in the sign represents the first letter of a common gloss of that sign. Examples from NZSL include FAMILY and COMMUNICATE. Brennan (2001: 58) points out that initialised signs involve some modification of form and have a great stability in the language. In one-handed alphabet countries (i.e. United States, Canada, France), initialised signs are more common because one-handed forms have more structure formation possibilities than two-handed forms (Sutton-Spence and Woll 1993: 196; Brennan 2001: 58; Johnston 1989: 508). In NZSL, there are examples of initialised signs with one-handed form, such as DAD, VIDEO and EUROPE. According to Locker McKee and Kennedy (2005: 290), initialised signs are a widespread phenomenon in NZSL resulting from the introduction of Signed English. For the current study, initialised signs will not be investigated. As mentioned earlier, Total Communication (or Australasian Signed English) was introduced in New Zealand deaf education from 1979 and deaf children were taught to sign following the English word order structure. English suffixes such as s, -ed, and -ing were fingerspelled and added to the root sign (also noted by Collins-Ahlgren 1989: 179). While incorporating suffixes from another language are not considered as a part of natural signed languages, affixes will be put under full fingerspelling category for this paper because they are not either lexicalised fingerspelling forms or initialised signs. This will assist with coding for the present study. 9

11 1.3 Frequency and distribution of NZSL fingerspelling McKee and Kennedy (1999: 11) created the Wellington Corpus of NZSL (WCNZSL) and discovered that out of 100,000 tokens of signs or compounds in the corpus only 2.5 percent were fingerspelled, including initialised 2 fingerspelling. SMLS accounts for 46.8 percent of fingerspelled items in the corpus. At less than 2.5 percent, the frequency of fingerspelling (excluding lexicalised fingerspelling) in NZSL is much lower than in ASL, Auslan and BSL: 10 percent on average are reported for Auslan and BSL (Sutton- Spence 1999; Schembri & Johnston 2007: 332), and between 12 to 35 percent for ASL discourse (Padden & Gunsauls 2003: 15). Further results from WCNZSL (McKee & Kennedy 1999) showed that 2,554 occurrences of fingerspelling included 1,079 different fingerspelled words in the corpus. This means that some fingerspelled words were repeated. Out of 1079 different fingerspelled words, 36.6 percent were SMLS while 46.8 percent of the 2554 total of fingerspelled words in the corpus was SMLS (1999: 11). The number of signs involving the first letter in this corpus is much higher than the 9 percent found in BSL (Sutton- Spence 1999). In the WCNZSL list of 350 most frequently used signs, there was only one fingerspelled word (fs-so) (McKee & Kennedy 1999: 10). However, after reexamining this list, another fingerspelled word was found: fs-ok-asl; however this cannot be counted as fingerspelling in NZSL, because it is a lexical form borrowed from ASL. Moreover, I also noted 12 examples of lexicalised fingerspellings, all belonging to the noun grammatical category. This observation is important because lexicalised fingerspellings and the use of ASL manual alphabet are included in the current study. 1.4 Sociolinguistic variation The second part of the literature review will address language variation in spoken and sign languages. Anecdotal evidence and specific studies on fingerspelling variation in NZSL and other sign languages will be discussed. Language variation is systematic and is influenced by linguistic and social factors. As Labov (2003: 234) states, there are no single-style speakers because variation in every individual s speech is determined by 10

12 their relationship to other speakers, the domain the discourse is taking place in and the topic. Rickford (1996: 165) maintains that individuals typically belong to many social groups simultaneously and their speech patterns reflect the intersections of their social experiences, categories and roles. As with spoken languages, social factors such as region, gender, age, ethnicity and socio-economic class have been identified as reasons for variation in sign languages (Lucas et al 2003; McKee et al 2006). Variation in sign languages is further influenced by linguistic constraints such as grammatical category, discourse type and signs that precede or follow the target vocabulary (Lucas et al 2003; Johnston & Schembri 2007). Moreover, Lucas et al (2003: 158) concludes that some social constraints, such as the signers language background, are unique to Deaf communities. 1.5 Social factors in NZSL According to McKee and McKee (2002: xiii) sociolinguistic variation in NZSL has not been researched adequately to describe the extent of variation in signing between different groups in the community. Results from a pilot study on lexical variation in the NZSL number system found that age, region and gender all had a significant effect on lexical form (McKee et al 2006). As mentioned, NZSL researchers have indicated age as an important sociolinguistic variable for variation in NZSL (McKee & McKee 2007; Monaghan 1996; Forman 2003; Kennedy et al 1997). In ASL, Lucas et al (2003: 158) states that age as a sociolinguistic variable may have different effects on linguistic variation because of the differences in language policies in Deaf schools in the 20 th century, which means researchers need to consider age in connection with school language policies (2003: 57). New Zealand also experienced changes in language policies in deaf education during the same century and parallels can be drawn with this claim. Locker McKee and Kennedy (2005: 279) also comment that much of the variation has arisen from three different residential schools for Deaf children in Auckland, Feilding and Christchurch, although some other regions such as Hawkes Bay and Wellington also have some distinctive vocabulary. Levitt (1986) notes there is also variation in signs between people who attended the same school and he claims this is so 2 Kennedy and McKee (1999) used the term initialised signs / initialisation when they meant SMLS. 11

13 because deaf children were educated in age groups, which meant they had limited linguistic contact with older and younger children. Levitt (1986: ix) claims Deaf clubs are another strong influence on NZSL because they introduce deaf people to other varieties of signing other than those dialects used at their particular schools and they also provide the vital social contact for the linguistic community to flourish. In spoken languages, variation in language can also be attributed to social network, and the extent to which members of a community interact with each other (Milroy, 1980). Since Deaf clubs are key cultural sites where NZSL is maintained and developed, regional differences may arise as a result of social network. There is insufficient evidence to prove that gender contributes to sociolinguistic differences in NZSL, though observations by Monaghan are worth commenting on. She remarks that boys and girls were separated at Sumner school and at senior citizen gatherings where men and women usually sat apart (1996: 343). Moreover, she notices that at senior citizens gatherings, men s signing was often large with little mouth movements (1996: 343). Based on these observations, the extent of gender differences in language use in the New Zealand Deaf community warrants further investigation because it is a social factor in spoken languages (Bauer et al 2006). In sum, little is known about the effects of gender and other social factors in NZSL. 1.6 Sociolinguistic variation in NZSL fingerspelling Sociolinguistic variation in fingerspelling in NZSL is not yet adequately described, and awareness about this will enrich our knowledge about fingerspelling in NZSL. Although McKee and Kennedy (1999) examined the frequency and types of fingerspelling in NZSL; the effects of social variables or discourse type were not considered in their study. Insights gleaned from this literature review as well as anecdotal evidence suggest that fingerspelling is used more frequently by younger NZSL signers who experienced formal use of the manual alphabet during their schooling from 1979 onwards with the introduction of Total Communication (McKee & McKee 2007; Monaghan 1996; Collins-Ahlgren 1989). McKee and McKee (2007: 97) suggest the use of fingerspelling is also influenced by other variables such as the signer s knowledge of written English, 12

14 educational background and their perceptions about fingerspelling as a part of sign language. These claims are, however, based on researchers observations and a systematic study is needed to validate these observations about age-related variation in fingerspelling. Collins-Ahlgren conducted pioneering linguistic research to describe NZSL, and in her thesis she maintains that there is a lack of fingerspelling used by Deaf people aged over 40 if any at all (1989: 173). At the time of writing her thesis, Collins-Ahlgren s observation would have been applicable to Deaf New Zealanders aged 58 and over for the current study. Therefore, the validity of her hypothesis could be tested to see if age does impact the use of fingerspelling today, as she claimed it did in She also highlighted a generation gap in the use of SMLS, which is evident in the way young signers prefer to spell the initial letter of weekdays (1996: 82). Collins-Ahlgren s claim is supported by Monaghan s ethnographic study on the use of NZSL in Deaf community during the early 1990s. Monaghan commented on the lack of fingerspelling while observing and videotaping a dinner party consisting of 13 Deaf people who attended school from 1940 to The participants were approximately aged 40 and upward at the time of recording. Monaghan (1996: 271) only found three cases of SMLS and all of these cases involve a fingerspelling letter being used to indicate the name of a school, i.e. T-titirangi. Monaghan s view on fingerspelling, however, seems to be based on tenuous evidence because she failed to observe the use of fingerspelling in other genres, which may influence the frequency of fingerspelling. The dinner party only consisted of a small group of Deaf people, who mostly attended Titirangi, and thus this group is not representative of the New Zealand Deaf community. Also, it has to be noted that participants were familiar with each other and the topic, thus perhaps reducing the need to fingerspell. Monaghan went on to conduct interviews about fingerspelling with two groups of Deaf people: those who attended school before 1940 and those who attended school between the years 1940 to Her interviews generated some insightful comments and she concluded that fingerspelling at Sumner (a deaf school in Christchurch) was seen as a clear example of forbidden signing and was openly punished (1996: 145). In the first 13

15 group of interviewees, Margaret Parry stated she learned fingerspelling from a teacher at a school in England (1996: 144), and Verna McRae recalled a Deaf man from Australia who came to the Deaf club and taught her fingerspelling (1996: 146). Moreover, Monaghan interviewed a hearing sister of the late Annie Barclay who said she was famous for having had her hands tied behind her back for fingerspelling she was English, so had learned it in school there, and continued to use it when she got to Sumner (1996: 144). These comments show this group of students did not learn fingerspelling while at school. In the second group of interviewees, fingerspelling was a part of the signers linguistic repertoire, but not when they were at school. Ngaire Doherty, for example, picked up fingerspelling in England when she was twenty years old (1996: 197) and Maureen Seth said she learned from a private tutor (1996: 198). Monaghan comments that the niche filled by fingerspelling in the adult community is filled by air-writing and exaggerated lip movements at Titirangi and St. Dominic s (1996: 198). For example, one interviewee, Kevin Pivac, who learned fingerspelling at Deaf club, said that while at school, he often pointed at his mouth or wrote the word out in the air (1996: 197). Since these students learnt to convey their meanings by other strategies such as mouthing and pointing, it is possible that they did not rely much on fingerspelling during adulthood. Another perspective on NZSL fingerspelling is illustrated by Forman (2003: 92) who claims older signers around New Zealand use aerial spelling (air writing), which is like writing English letters in the air using a finger and initial letters of words are often sufficient with the aid of context. He condemns NZSL researchers for overlooking aerial spelling, for instance by criticising the creators of A Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language (Kennedy et al 1997) for not including aerial spelling. His article is, however, disputed by those researchers (Dugdale et al 2003: 495) as they argue aerial spelling simply was not present as an element of NZSL in the consciousness of the deaf signers when they discussed and performed the signs for the database. Moreover, the dictionary was, in fact, a project involving 90 signers and the Deaf Association of New Zealand, and all but one of the researchers were Deaf users of NZSL. It would be interesting to observe the existence of air writing in the current study. 14

16 The first NZSL dictionary produced in 1986 provides evidence about the use of the manual alphabet at the time (Levitt 1986). In sharp contrast to the 1997 NZSL dictionary, the first dictionary consisted of only eight examples using the manual alphabet: T-tuesday, TH-thursday, AZ-alphabet, CC-christchurch, G-game, GFgrandfather, GM-grandmother and no examples of ASL handshapes were found. Interestingly, air writing the letter W represented the word Wellington. Overall, many illustrations in the 1997 dictionary (with the manual alphabet) were not present in the 1986 dictionary and a comparison of the two dictionaries supports McKee s claim that the rate of linguistic change in NZSL has increased significantly within a decade (1994: 251). Therefore, these differences between the two dictionaries may reflect differences in fingerspelling use over time. 1.7 Sociolinguistic variation in fingerspelling (other sign languages) This section will address social and linguistic factors in fingerspelling variation in other sign languages. According to Lucas et al a central concern of any variation study is to define clearly the linguistic variables being examined and to make sure that they are indeed variable (2001: 89 cited in Major 2006: 15). The use of the manual alphabet is perceived as a very sensitive marker of social and regional dialects in BSL (Sutton- Spence 1994: 410) and an important linguistically and socially conditioned variable in Auslan (Schembri & Johnston 2007: 344). Since NZSL is part of the BANZSL family, then it is probable that fingerspelling is a significant variable in the study of NZSL variation. Schembri and Johnston (2007) conducted a pilot research project on Auslan fingerspelling by using data from the Sociolinguistic Variation in Australian Sign Language project (Schembri & Johnston 2004). A total of 205 Deaf participants, aged 15 to 89 years old, from five different sites in Australia were filmed having conversations and interviews. A mini-corpus consisting of 2,667 utterances, with 771 fingerspelling items, was used for their study and a VARBUL analysis was performed. As the dataset was originally developed for a phonological study, Schembri and Johnston acknowledge it is not a truly random sample of Auslan utterances because 15

17 seventy percent of target signs in the clauses are verbs and collocations with the target signs (2007: 333). The most frequently fingerspelled items (including SMLS) are mostly functors, as listed in order: fs-so, fs-to, fs-if, fs-but, fs-do, fs-at, fs-how, fs-and, fs-was, fs- BUS and the top fifteen items include these, plus the following: F-father, Y-year, M- mother, apostrophe-s, Q-queensland (Schembri & Johnston 2007: 339). Results show linguistic factors, such as situational variety and grammatical categories, influence variation in Auslan fingerspelling. For instance, interviews favoured fingerspelling slightly more than conversations (2007: 340) and 67.3 percent of fingerspelling items were nouns, followed by functors (20.9 percent) including conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and affixes then verbs (5.5 percent), adjectives (2.7 percent) and adverbs (1.7 percent) (2007: 337). Social factors such as age and region yielded differences in fingerspelling usage whereas other factors such as gender, class and language background were not considered significant. Schembri and Johnston (2007: 340) found that fingerspelling use increases by age and is more favoured in Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne than Sydney and Adelaide. Moreover, results reveal linguistic and social factors are interacted, for example, female, older and non-native signers tend to use slightly more fingerspelling functors, verbs, adjectives and adverbs than men, young and native signers. Since Auslan and NZSL are closely related languages, it will be relevant to determine if these findings are applicable to NZSL. I will now consider Sutton-Spence s (1994) systematic study on BSL fingerspelling. A corpus of 19,450 fingerspellings was accumulated from two corpora. Firstly, she created a corpus of approximately 190,000 signs from 504 participants in See Hear! a BBC television magazine programme for the British Deaf community from 1981 to Data in the second corpus consisted of 8550 signs, from a set of stories, interviews and anecdotes by BSL Deaf signers, and this was already collected for another study at the Centre for Deaf Studies at Bristol University. As with the Auslan fingerspelling study (Schembri & Johnston 2007), Sutton-Spence found the occurrence of fingerspelling correlated with the age of the signers and the influence of English upon their signing, 16

18 as demonstrated by the amount of speech they use (1994: 404). Older BSL signers used fingerspelling more than younger signers, however, younger signers use more lexicalised fingerspelling than older signers. There are limitations in Sutton-Spence s study. Signing in See Hear! may be influenced by producers and time constraints while filming, interaction with hearing people which may initiate more fingerspelling, and additionally, signers may code switch to ensure they are clearly understood by a wide audience. Moreover, Sutton-Spence included in her study any signer who was deaf and that means the signing may not represent BSL because there may be signers (i.e. Deaf immigrants) who are not yet fluent in BSL. In the second corpus, half of the participants had Deaf parents. Fewer than 10 percent of Deaf people are born to Deaf parents (McKee 2001: 34) and therefore, having half of these participants in a dataset does not accurately emulate fingerspelling usage by the BSL community. In another BSL study, Sutton-Spence and Woll (1993) investigated two types of fingerspelling: English fingerspelling and lexicalised fingerspelling, and relationship of these forms with the following social variables: gender, age, region and mode of communication. In their data, there were 180 women and 308 men, split into two age groups over 45 and under 45 years old; these were further divided in regional categories, which reflected Deaf social networks (1993: 199). They noticed that 310 participants used signs without voice, 62 signs with occasional voicing, 98 signing and voice simultaneously, four mostly voice with occasional signing and six were inconsistent (1993: 200). Sutton-Spence and Woll also observed that as the 1980s progressed, more people on See Hear! used signs without voice and less fingerspelling. As with the Sutton-Spence's 1994 study, Sutton-Spence and Woll found that older signers and also users of sign with speech are more likely to produce more fingerspelling but there was no difference in the use of lexicalised fingerspelling which indicates that the use of BSL lexicalised fingerspelling is much more homogenous throughout the population and is independent of the use of English fingerspelling (1993: 202; also see Blumenthal 1991 on ASL). This finding further reinforces full 17

19 fingerspellings and lexicalised fingerspellings as separate subcategories under fingerspelling forms. Sutton-Spence (1998) also examined grammatical constraints on fingerspelling English verb loans and found fingerspelling was mostly constrained to nouns. In the entire See Hear! fingerspelling corpus, 0.8 percent of items were verbs and also 2.3 percent of SMLS in the corpus were verbs (1998: 46). Sutton-Spence (1998: 49) presented grammatical class size as a major factor: nouns make up 60 percent of English vocabulary, verbs 14 percent and adjectives 12 percent. She argues the lack of fingerspelling verbs is not only constrained to signed languages, that the patterns observed are similar to those seen in borrowing between many world languages (1998: 47). As indicated in BSL, it is highly likely there are grammatical constraints in NZSL fingerspelling, with either minimal or no fingerspelling verbs. In another BSL study, Brennan (2001) examined fingerspelling use in Scottish and English signers. She used two sets of data one subset of data from the Edinburgh BSL Project, collected from 1978 to 1986 and she also selected samples consisting of both Scottish and English signers from publicly available videotaped materials in BSL at Deaf Studies Research Unit in Durham (2001: 61). She found that Scottish signers on average used more fingerspelling than English signers and within Scottish signers, those with Deaf parents use less fingerspelling, but use more forms with fingerspelling patterns and very few nonce single letter forms (2001: 66). Her data, however, may not represent the Scottish Deaf community because she only observed six videotaped Scottish participants aged between 24 and 70 and some of these people had spent time outside Scotland (2001: 61). It is also unclear whether data from Durham was collected during the same period as the Edinburgh BSL Project, and if the quantity of signing was similar between participants. In the Edinburgh BSL data, topics suggested by the Deaf researcher ranged from education to Deaf clubs; there were also conversations following on from stimuli, for example, film material. In the Durham data, there was a short lecture extract, discussions with Deaf staff and students, and excerpts from signed videotape about unemployment (2001: 61). It would have been better to make comparisons between data from the same genres, as we know that genre differences can have an effect on language variation (Lucas et al 2003: 8). 18

20 Mulrooney (2002) investigated gender differences in ASL fingerspelling. Data was collected from eight Deaf participants; four males and four females, by using signing excerpted from rough footage of Deaf Mosaic, a television series produced by the Gallaudet University Television department from the 1980s to the 1990s. Selected participants were interviewed and despite the variety in topics, all used fingerspellings. Using VARBUL software, results indicated grammatical category influences variation, for example, proper nouns favour citation form (signs as illustrated in the dictionary) while verbs strongly disfavour the use of citation form fingerspelled signs (2002: 18) and males were more likely to produce non-citation forms in fingerspelling than women (2002: 20). However, the dataset in Mulrooney s study is too small to make conclusions about the effect of gender on ASL fingerspelling and she does acknowledge that the frequency and use of fingerspelling may be influenced by the television genre (2002: 21). The author recognises there is a need to analyse a more comprehensive corpus of data (with more subjects in each social group) to allow broader generalisation about variation in ASL fingerspelling (2002: 21). Padden and Gunsauls (2003) explored the uses of ASL fingerspelling as well as its relationship with linguistic and social factors. By accessing the ASL sociolinguistic database created by Lucas, Bayley and Valli in 2001, the researchers conducted two different analyses using two different datasets: firstly, to determine what is fingerspelled (lexicalised fingerspellings were not included); and secondly, to measure the frequency of fingerspelling. In the first dataset, 14 participants having conversations lasting more than ten minutes were selected and in the second dataset, Padden and Gunsauls transcribed a continuous segment of 150 signs for each of the 36 signers for frequency analysis. As with other studies (such as Schembri & Johnston 2007; Sutton-Spence 1998), they found that fingerspellings were overwhelming nouns (nearly 70 percent), followed by adjectives (10.1 percent), then verbs (6.3 percent) and there were a very low percentage of prepositions, articles, affixes and adverbs (2003: 19). Essentially, they found that the grammatical distribution of fingerspelling words were similar regardless of the signers backgrounds (2003: 18). This is interesting because results show ASL fingerspelling is governed by a set of rules relating to grammatical distribution. 19

21 Results also reveal differences between amount of fingerspelling and social variables such as age, social class and language background. Padden and Gunsauls found signers who were younger and had less education were more likely to fingerspell proper nouns. Signers differed in their inventories of words, which is a reflection of their different life experiences (2003: 23). Moreover, native signers on average used fingerspelling more (18 percent of the time) compared to that of non-native signers (15 percent); these results contrast with findings in BSL by Brennan (2001). They also found that the more education native signers had, the more they fingerspelled and in contrast, educational level was not significant in the frequency of fingerspelling among non-native signers (2003: 25). The research reviewed in this paper shows that discourse type play a role in the frequency and uses of fingerspelling in sign language (Sutton-Spence & Woll 1993; Sutton-Spence 1994; Padden 1991; Padden & Gunsauls 2003; Schembri & Johnston 2007). This factor has been referred to variously in the literature as register, situational variety and genre; for the purposes of this study, I will use the term genre but report other studies as described by their authors. Schembri and Johnston (2007) investigated the effects of situational variety on the frequency of fingerspelling in Auslan and found that interviews favoured fingerspelled elements slightly more than conversations. They also noted differences in situational variety were the differences in topics rather than any difference in the degree of formality (2007: 341). In a study of ASL fingerspelling, Padden and LeMaster (1985: 165) discovered casual in-group contexts are less likely to elicit fingerspelling items and they claim fingerspelling is avoided in some domains, such as theatre for example. This view is reinforced by Sutton-Spence who observes that in BSL, it is common for quite long stretches of signing to use no fingerspelling at all, particularly in lower, more casual registers of signers (1994: 22) and signers may accommodate to the signing of conversational participants to ensure understanding, perhaps by altering the amount of fingerspelling they use (1994: 185). Moreover, Sutton-Spence (1994: 260) suggests that future research on fingerspelling will need a large amount of signing from one signer using several registers to enable comparison. The comparison of interview and conversation genres in the present study will contribute towards our understanding of fingerspelling usage in NZSL. 20

22 This review raises interesting and worthwhile questions for understanding fingerspelling variation in NZSL. Since fingerspelling is a small part of sign languages, there has been inadequate research in this area and little is known about fingerspelling in NZSL. As NZSL is a member of the BANZSL family, the two-handed manual alphabet is used among Deaf New Zealanders. The use of the manual alphabet in NZSL is categorised as follows: full fingerspellings, lexicalised fingerspellings (including abbreviations, acronyms and single manual letter signs) and initialised signs. An earlier study (McKee & Kennedy 1999) has highlighted the low frequency of fingerspelling in NZSL in comparison with Auslan, BSL and ASL. Also, anecdotal evidence suggests signers age influences fingerspelling frequency in NZSL as younger signers tend to fingerspell more. As reported in other signed language studies, research shows social and linguistic factors such as age, gender, region, social class, language background and genre are associated with fingerspelling frequency and much of this relates to the educational history of particular language communities. International studies also indicate fingerspelling is overwhelmingly nouns, followed by few other grammatical categories. Overall, this review demonstrates there are gaps in our knowledge about fingerspelling in NZSL and therefore a systematic study is required to examine the relationship between fingerspelling frequency and distribution with social and linguistic factors. 2. Research Questions This paper aims to answer the following questions: 1. What is the overall frequency of fingerspelling in this corpus of NZSL discourse? 2. How are fingerspelled items distributed across grammatical categories? 3. What is the effect of genre (interview vs. conversation) on the use of fingerspelling? 4. What is the effect of age, gender, ethnicity and region of signers on the use of fingerspelling? 21

23 3. Research Method In order to answer the four research questions, this section outlines the research method used for this study. Information about participants background is given, followed by a description of data collection and analysis procedure. 3.1 Participants This study analyses a subset of existing corpus data collected by the Deaf Studies Research Unit (DSRU) at Victoria University of Wellington, as part of the Marsden funded Sociolinguistic Variation in NZSL Project (SLVP) 3. The corpus for that project included 150 Deaf NZSL signers, balanced for age, gender and regional distribution. Data collection took place during 2005 and 2006, giving us a snapshot of NZSL use at that time. The SLVP is a replication of Lucas et al s (2003) sociolinguistic variation in ASL project, and also partly modelled on the subsequent study by Schembri and Johnston (2004) on Auslan variation. The purpose of these studies was to analyse the relationship of variation at lexical, phonological and syntactic levels with internal linguistic factors and external social factors of age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. In the SLVP project, data were collected from five sites: Auckland, Palmerston North, Napier, Wellington and Christchurch. For the current study, 38 participants were divided in three groups: north (Auckland), central (Palmerston North, Napier, Wellington) and south (Christchurch), reflecting the location of the three residential schools for the deaf and major communities arising from these schools. In this sample 4, 13 participants were from north, 16 from central and 9 from south. Participants in this sample comprised of 18 males and 20 females, 26 Pakeha and 12 Māori (see table 1 below). Although Māori made up 14.6 percent of the New Zealand population in 2006, 3 site/nzsl variation/variation project.aspx 4 Ethics approval for the SLVP was obtained from the VUW Human Ethics Committee prior to data collection. All participants gave written consent for videotaped data to be used to investigate variation and other linguistic topics in NZSL. As a Research Assistant employed by the SLVP to code data, I have been given clearance by the Principal Investigators (David McKee and Rachel McKee) to utilise the corpus for this study; there are no additional human ethics considerations for the proposed study. This 22

24 the ratio of Māori to Pakeha participants for this study was high because Māori are over-represented in the Deaf community 5. Table 1 Participants Data (n=38) Age (n=23) Age 45+ (n=15) Male Female Male Female North Central 5 6 n/a 4 South Total * Māori, 12; Pakeha, 26. Lucas et al (2003: 158) note that age is a prominent sociolinguistic variable in signing communities because of changing language policies in deaf education. For this study, I have determined that changes of communication policy in deaf education in New Zealand motivate comparison of two age groups: 15 to 44 years old (23 participants) and over 45 years old (15 participants). As stated earlier, deaf educators abandoned oralism in favour of the Total Communication philosophy from 1979 and thus fingerspelling became a part of deaf children s linguistic repertoire from that time onwards. Participants aged 45 years old and over at the time of data collection would have been educated orally so I was interested, therefore, in examining whether differences in language policies in New Zealand deaf education could have an effect on fingerspelling variation in NZSL. Throughout the study, it was decided to conduct further analysis by subdividing participants within the 45 plus age group: one group from 45 to 71 years old and another group 72 years and over. The rationale for splitting the group at 72 years old rather than 71 plus is because one signer aged 71 years was a NZSL tutor and from my perspective, her signing was more modern than others of her age group. project was conducted as part of Sociolinguistic Variation Project in NZSL and is therefore covered by the ethics approval of that project

25 Few Deaf people acquire sign language as a native language, since approximately 95 percent of sign language users are born to non-deaf parents; native speaker is therefore too restrictive as a criterion for inclusion in a study of sociolinguistic variation in a signing community. All signers in this study can be described as native and early learners of NZSL defined here as Deaf individuals who acquired NZSL before the age of 12 and who use it as their primary language. This age is higher than the acquisition threshold for participants in the Auslan study of variation (Schembri & Johnston 2007), which was seven years old, however, almost all the NZ participants in the sample had actually acquired NZSL by the age of seven years. Anecdotally, the number of NZSL users with Deaf parents is small in comparison with Australia and the United States; in the NZSL dataset used for this study, only two participants have Deaf parents so native verus non-native NZSL status will not be investigated. 3.2 Data In the Auslan and ASL studies of sociolinguistic variation in fingerspelling (Schembri & Johnston 2007; Padden & Gunsauls 2003), they used subsets of data from a larger corpus. In the original corpuses, the main aim was to investigate sociolinguistic variation in Auslan and ASL. Since the SLVP is a replication of these studies, it means data collection for my study is similar to Auslan and ASL study on fingerspelling variation because my study also uses an existing subset. Data collection procedures for the SLVP project were as follows: participants were filmed in an unobserved conversation situation and in individual interviews with a Deaf facilitator. Groups consisting of two to four Deaf participants were invited to have natural conversations with each other about anything they liked for approximately 45 minutes, recorded by two video cameras. Participants were grouped according to their age to elicit the nearest natural signing possible. As Sutton-Spence (1994: 185) points out, signers may accommodate to the signing of conversational participants to ensure understanding, perhaps by altering the amount of fingerspelling they use. It therefore makes sense to group participants in their age groups to minimise style-switching. In order to get clear recordings of spontaneous sign language discourse, the positions of participants must be intentionally arranged. One has to consider the placement and 24