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Documenting Language Variation in British Sign Language

Explore the British Sign Language Corpus project, its methodology, and investigation into phonological and lexical variation and change. Discover the team, recruitment process, annotation techniques, and project timeline.

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Documenting Language Variation in British Sign Language

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  1. Documenting and describing language variation and change in the British Sign Language Corpus. Adam Schembri, Jordan Fenlon, Ramas Rentelis & Rosemary Stamp. “Sign Language Corpora: Linguistic Issues” workshop, 25th July 2009.

  2. Overview • Background to BSL Corpus Project • Methodology • What we are finding so far • Phonological variation • Lexical variation and change

  3. Background: Aims of the BSL Corpus Project • To create an on-line, open-access corpus of annotated BSL digital video data that will become a shared, peer-reviewable resource and standard reference for BSL researchers and teachers. Full participant consent and metadata (background data about participants etc) will be included. • To conduct corpus-based investigations of sociolinguistic variation and change, language contact and lexical frequency • Project timeline: January 2008-December 2010

  4. Phase 1: 240 signers for 2 hours 120 filming sessions Warm up activity: personal experience anecdotes 30 minutes free conversation 15 minute interview on Deaf issues and language attitudes 15 minute lexical elicitation task Currently underway Phase 2: 100 native signers for 2 hours Elicited narratives Elicitation tasks to be decided (e.g., eliciting various key aspects of BSL grammar), with different tasks for different subsets of participants Background: Content

  5. Background: Specific studies • (1) Linguistic and sociolinguistic variation and change in • (a) phonological variable (1/G handshape variation) • (b) lexical variables (100 target lexical items) • (c) grammatical variable (agreement/indicating verbs & subject/object drop) • (2) Lexical frequency based on the annotation of 100,000 signs

  6. 1 principal investigator/project director (2008-10) & 7 co-investigators Advisory Group: 9 members of Deaf community Research associate (2009-10): data collection co-ordinator, annotation and analysis of data (Jordan Fenlon) Research assistant (0.6, 2009-10): capture, editing, annotation (Ramas Rentelis) 8 Deaf community fieldworkers (150-200 hrs each post) 1 translator/research assistant (0.6, 2009-10): provide written English translation of data (Kyra Pollitt) 1 PhD studentship: lexical variation and change (Rosemary Stamp) 1 project technician (0.5, 2008-10) Background: Project team

  7. Methodology: Sociolinguistic approach • Film 30 Deaf native and near-native signers (BSL exposure by 7 years of age) in 8 regions across the UK: • England (London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle) • Wales: Cardiff • Scotland: Glasgow • Northern Ireland: Belfast • Total sample of 240 individuals, balanced for age, gender, language background, possibly social class and ethnicity

  8. Deaf community fieldworkers (cf. ‘contact people’) will recruit 240 (30 x 8 regions) participants that match project criteria Filming over 2-3 visits No hearing people present during filming Pairs of signers matched for region and age All resident in their region for 10 years at least Participants of the same or different genders As few long-term partners/spouses filmed together as possible Methodology: Recruitment & data collection

  9. Methodology: Recruitment & data collection • Filming session: • blue background screen • two lights • plain colored clothing (back-up T-shirts) • chairs without arms • 1 high definition video-camera(s) focused on each participant, 1 on the pair

  10. Methodology: Annotation • Annotation using ELAN template created for Auslan corpus project • ID glosses for 100,000 signs and for all other annotation • Controlled vocabulary (CV) tagging for specific linguistic variables • Tagging each file for social factors • Written English translation • BSLCP team is using ELAN annotation for a study of phonological variation • Separate tiers for each factor group, with a summary tier with all factors in a string for export into VARBRUL

  11. Lexical frequency and ELAN • BSLCP team is using ELAN annotation for a specific study of lexical frequency • RH and LH tier with ID-glosses: standardised for all signs and linked to a lexical database being created • Lexical variants distinguished by numerals: BROWN1 versus BROWN2 • Phonological variants of a single sign (MOTHER1a and MOTHER1b) grouped under single ID-gloss: MOTHER1 • All glosses to be exported and counted to determine most frequent lexical items in BSL conversations: needed for psycholinguistic studies at DCAL

  12. 300+ hours of BSL digital video data Accompanying written English translation Accompanying metadata (data about the data) ELAN annotation files to be made publicly accessible Methodology: Open access archive

  13. Data collection: 140/240 Birmingham: 30 participants filmed Glasgow: 30 participants filmed Bristol: 32 participants filmed Manchester: 30 participants filmed London: 18 participants filmed Filming in London to be completed soon Fieldworker hired for Cardiff, Belfast & Newcastle 360 1.5 hour tapes of unedited footage Current status July 2009

  14. So what are finding out thus far? BSL 1 handshape variation study • This study replicates work on ASL (Bayley, Lucas & Rose, 2002) in the BSL signing community • Variation in the handshape of BSL signs that are produced in citation form with a 1/G handshape (e.g., PEOPLE, THINK, HEARING, QUICK, WHAT, BUT, PRO-1). Citation form (+cf) involves straight extended index finger with no extension of thumb or non-selected fingers. Non-citation form may involve bending of index, thumb extension as well as extension of non-selected fingers (-cf) • Research questions include: Is variation in 1 handshape signs similar or different in BSL compared to ASL? What is the role of linguistic factors in BSL, such as grammatical category and assimilation? What social factors are relevant for this variation in BSL?

  15. BSL 1 handshape variation • Aim to collect 10 tokens from 240 participants = 2,400 tokens • Data consists of 1200 tokens coded thus far from 120 participants in Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham (i.e., this represents only 50% of total data) • 65% +citation form, 35% –citation form • Coded to test possible effects of linguistic and social factors • Analysed using VARBRUL software

  16. BSL 1 handshape variation: Factors We coded for: • Number of articulators in target sign: 1h vs 2h signs • Grammatical category • content signs (e.g., THINK, PEOPLE, HEARING, QUICK) • grammatical signs (e.g., WHAT, BUT) • pronoun signs (e.g., PRO-1, PRO-2) • Handshape in the preceding and following sign: • 1 handshape • some other handshape • no handshape due to pause in the signing • Gender (m vs f) • Age (18-50 vs 51+) • Language background (parents Deaf or hearing) • Region: Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol & Birmingham

  17. BSL 1 handshape study All linguistic factors are significant: • Like the ASL study (Bayley, Lucas & Rose, 2002), we have evidence for assimilation of handshape due to effects of the preceding and following sign • Also like ASL, assimilation effects are strongest in pronouns and grammatical signs and less common in content signs Only one social factor is significant: • Unlike ASL, we also have evidence that there women signers favour citation forms of these signs when compared to men • Age, region, language background not significant.

  18. BSL 1/G handshape study • Why is this important? • Handshape variation is not well understood in signed languages • The fact that pointing signs show significantly more handshape variation than lexical signs suggests that indexicality is interacting with linguistic form • Is frequency important? Lexical frequency effects in the Auslan and NZSL location variation study (Schembri et al., 2009) • Gender differences in spoken languages

  19. So what are finding out thus far? Observations on lexical variation data • Lexical variation research questions • Is there evidence of dialect levelling in BSL? How does it correlate with social factors such as region, age, gender etc? • Preliminary observations suggest lexical variation in BSL does appear to be diminishing: younger signers do appear to be using more standardised lexical items than the older generation, including number signs (e.g., Manchester numbers) and signs for foreign countries (e.g., AMERICA) • Dialect levelling means a loss of heritage BSL vocabulary and the strong regional identities they represented • BUT it is perhaps the inevitable result of the emergence of a more national and more international Deaf identity in the UK

  20. BSL lexical variation: Number signs in Manchester & Birmingham All participants asked to produce their signs for 1 to 20 in a fixed random order. We are coding for: • Each specific lexical and formational variant • Whether each variants represents a traditional regional number sign or a non-traditional sign • Gender (male vs female) • Age (18-35, 36-50, 51-65, 66+) • Language background (parents Deaf or hearing) • Region: Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, London, Belfast, Cardiff & Newcastle • Ethnicity: White British versus Other (South Asian, Black etc) Preliminary results, based on 1200 tokens from 60 participants in Manchester and Birmingham only, analysed for (2), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7)

  21. Results: Manchester & Birmingham

  22. Results: Manchester & Birmingham • Thus, evidence of movement away from traditional numbers signs in younger generations in both Manchester and Birmingham • Note that the difference between the two age groups 50-65 and 66+ was not significant (Fisher’s Exact Test, p value equals 0.2569), but that the differences between the oldest (50+), middle (36-50) and youngest groups (18-35) were each significant (Fisher’s Exact Test, p value less than 0.0001): this suggests that there was minimal change in the two older groups, with the two younger age groups driving the variation • The change was stronger in the Manchester data than Birmingham, and in Deaf adults with hearing parents than in those with Deaf parents • Gender and ethnicity were not significant

  23. BSL Corpus Project: Acknowledgements • Thanks to the following researchers whose work influenced our research design: • Trevor Johnston (Australia) • Ceil Lucas (USA) • David McKee & Graeme Kennedy (New Zealand) • Thanks to the project co-investigators (Kearsy Cormier, Margaret Deuchar, Frances Elton, Donall O’Baoill, Rachel Sutton-Spence, Graham Turner, Bencie Woll) & Deaf Community Advisory Group members (Linda Day, Clark Denmark, Helen Foulkes, Melinda Napier, Tessa Padden, Gary Quinn, Kate Rowley & Lorna Allsop) • Thanks to Sally Reynolds & Annika Pabsch for data collection and editing

  24. Contacts & websites • Adam Schembri & Jordan Fenlon • a.schembri@ucl.ac.uk & j.fenlon@ucl.ac.uk • DCAL Research Centre, UCL • www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk • Project website • www.bslcorpusproject.org

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