American Sign Language Commons^™

An Interactive Visual Database For American Sign Language Reveals How Signs Are Organized In The Mind, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Ariel Goldberg, Karen Emmory, Naomi Caselli

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

"We are four researchers who study psycholinguistics, linguistics, neuroscience and deaf education. Our team of deaf and hearing scientists worked with a group of software engineers to create the ASL-LEX database that anyone can use for free. We cataloged information on nearly 3,000 signs and built a visual, searchable and interactive database that allows scientists and linguists to work with ASL in entirely new ways."

The Asl-Lex 2.0 Project: A Database Of Lexical And Phonological Properties For 2,723 Signs In American Sign Language, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Ariel M. Cohen-Goldberg, Karen Emmory

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency (“guessability”) ratings (from non-signers), sign and videoclip durations, lexical class, and more. We document the steps used to create ASL-LEX 2.0 and describe the distributional characteristics for sign properties across the lexicon and examine the relationships among lexical and phonological properties of signs. Correlation …

Coda, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of CODA (2021), directed by Siân Heder.

Exploring Accessibility And Social Inclusion For Children With Hearing Impairments In Residential Camps Through The Occupational Therapy Lens, Tiffany Coles

Student Capstone Papers

Children are encouraged to engage in various play, leisure, and social participation activities to enhance the development of life skills, independence, and social skills. A common leisure and social participation activity for children aged 6 to 18-years-old is to attend residential camp. Residential camps provide children a structured opportunity to engage in leisure activities while learning to become independent and self-confident when socializing and making new friends. Attending camp can be a fun and engaging environment to help accelerate growth in key developmental outcomes, such as positive identity, social skills, physical skills, positive values, and spirituality.

Within the residential camp …

American Sign Language Interpreting For D/Deaf Individuals With Disabilities: A Qualitative Study And Practical Guide, Emily Mason

Senior Honors Theses

American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting for d/Deaf individuals with disabilities (DWD) is a complex task, and one which lacks an adequate research-base to inform best practices. Using the foundation of existing literature on closely related topics such as the field of ASL interpreting, educational interpreting, education of DWD individuals, and research about specific disabilities occurring with d/Deafness, I compiled a literature review and created a theoretical conceptual framework concerning this topic. In further investigation of this subject, I also conducted a qualitative study through online questionnaires sent out by email to ASL interpreters located through snowball sampling. The data collected …

Social Isolation, Anxiety, And Stress Among Vrs/Vri Sign Language Interpreters During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kolten Schnack

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in increased Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) and increased remote working for interpreters who work in Video Relay Services (VRS) as many have received temporary permission to work from home rather than a central call center. While certain occupational health risks such as stress and burnout for sign language interpreters who work in VRS have been studied, no one has studied general mental health among VRS sign language interpreters under the current pandemic (Dean et al., 2010; Schwenke, 2015; Wessling & Shaw, 2014). This study aimed to collect data on sign language interpreters’ experiences of social …

Cross-Linguistic Metaphor Priming In Asl-English Bilinguals: Effects Of The Double Mapping Constraint, Franziska Schaller, Brittany Lee, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Lucinda O'Grady Farnady, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Meir’s (2010) Double Mapping Constraint (DMC) states the use of iconic signs in metaphors is restricted to signs that preserve the structural correspondence between the articulators and the concrete source domain and between the concrete and metaphorical domains. We investigated ASL signers’ comprehension of English metaphors whose translations complied with the DMC (Communication collapsed during the meeting) or violated the DMC (The acid ate the metal). Metaphors were preceded by the ASL translation of the English verb, an unrelated sign, or a still video. Participants made sensibility judgments. Response times (RTs) were faster for DMC-Compliant sentences …

Forced Transitions: Learning Asl In A Virtual Environment, Kara Gournaris

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Engagement with native language models is essential for second language acquisition. Social distancing mandates made this interaction nearly impossible for students learning American Sign Language (ASL), at a small rural university in western Oregon. COVID-19 brought with it many challenges, not the least of which was a hurried transition from face-to-face to online learning. The author found that some courses degraded in content and instruction when shifting to an online platform. Without access to community events where native language models were present, ASL students had less opportunities for incidental learning, legitimate peripheral participation, and connection within Deaf communities of practice.

A Qualitative Study Of American Sign Language Interpreting For Deaf Individuals With Disabilities, Emily A. Mason

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

There are complexities involved in American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting for the unique population of Deaf individuals with disabilities (DWD), particularly in educational settings, that must be considered. Based on the foundation of existing literature regarding the field of ASL interpreting, educational interpreting, and strategies of working with DWD individuals, the researcher created a theoretical conceptual framework that combined the frameworks of ASL Interpreting and Special Education. The current primary research is aimed at addressing another portion of the gap, that is, research regarding practical experiences in working with this population. This study was conducted through questionnaires sent out through …

Sasl Journal, Volume 3, Number 1

Society for American Sign Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Vision And Sensor-Based Signer-Independent Framework For Arabic Sign Language Recognition, Al-Shamayleh Ahmad Sami Abd Alkareem

Student Works (2020-2029)

Hearing and speech-impairment disability is widespread throughout the world. At present, 15 million people have this disability in the Arab world, and about 86% of them come from low- and middle-income countries. Meanwhile, sign language (SL) can be classified into standard Arabic sign language (ArSL) and local Arabic sign language (LArSL). ArSL is the formal standard and is the more acceptable SL in the Arab world; it is also considered as the medium of instructions for schools and universities as well as television news, shows and programmes. With the absence of usable ArSL recognition (ArSLR) platforms, hearing- and speech-impaired people …

Vaccine Literacy Among Deaf Adult American Sign Language Users Of Hearing Parents, Casey Lee Peck

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Background: Communication barriers, the lack of proficiency in English, and poor communication with medical providers affect some Deaf people negatively in terms of health literacy. One contemporary controversial health literacy issue affecting Deaf people concerns vaccines. According to the literature, parents with higher health literacy are less likely to vaccinate their children as opposed to those parents with low health literacy (Veldwijk, van der Heide, Rademakers, Schuit, de Wit, Uiters & Lambooij 2015). Studies have shown that the majority of the deaf population have relatively low health literacy; however, vaccine literacy in the deaf population has not been investigated. Research …

I Saw The Signs: The Role Of American Sign Language In Preventing Violence Against Deaf Youth, Tolu Ojuola

Senior Honors Theses

The American Deaf community, comprised of approximately 500,000 people, has developed into a sociolinguistic, cultural community with American Sign Language (ASL) at its center. ASL is the autonomous language of Deaf individuals in America complete with its own grammar, orthography, syntax, and morphology. ASL is capable of conveying complex emotions and abstract ideas. However, most deaf children remain unable to express their innermost feelings because they live in homes with hearing parents who do not speak their language. For many deaf children, this is their first experience with isolation, but it is one they will grow familiar with as they …

I See What You're Saying: A Deaf Culture And American Sign Language Awareness Event, Alexis M. Sejnoha

Honors Thesis

Deaf Culture and American Sign Language are an important part of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community. Most people outside of this community are unaware of these aspects, and remain uneducated about them. This document is an event plan for an educational event about American Sign Language and Deaf Culture, as well as an artist statement explaining the conception and implementation of this plan, and how it was impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic.

Sasl Journal, Volume 2, Number 2

Society for American Sign Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Sasl Journal, Volume 2, Number 1

Society for American Sign Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Sasl Journal, Volume 1, Number 1

Society for American Sign Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Unique N170 Signatures To Words And Faces In Deaf Asl Signers Reflect Experience-Specific Adaptations During Early Visual Processing, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Katherine J. Midgley, Phillipp J. Holcomb, Karen Emmorey, David C. Plaut, Marlene Behrmann

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Previous studies with deaf adults reported reduced N170 waveform asymmetry to visual words, a finding attributed to reduced phonological mapping in left-hemisphere temporal regions compared to hearing adults. An open question remains whether this pattern indeed results from reduced phonological processing or from general neurobiological adaptations in visual processing of deaf individuals. Deaf ASL signers and hearing nonsigners performed a same-different discrimination task with visually presented words, faces, or cars, while scalp EEG time-locked to the onset of the first item in each pair was recorded. For word recognition, the typical left-lateralized N170 in hearing participants and reduced left-sided asymmetry …

A Data-Driven Approach To The Semantics Of Iconicity In American Sign Language And English, Bill Thompson, Marcus Perlman, Gary Lupyan, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Karen Emmory

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

A growing body of research shows that both signed and spoken languages display regular patterns of iconicity in their vocabularies. We compared iconicity in the lexicons of American Sign Language (ASL) and English by combining previously collected ratings of ASL signs (Caselli, Sevcikova Sehyr, Cohen-Goldberg, & Emmorey, 2017) and English words (Winter, Perlman, Perry, & Lupyan, 2017) with the use of data-driven semantic vectors derived from English. Our analyses show that models of spoken language lexical semantics drawn from large text corpora can be useful for predicting the iconicity of signs as well as words. Compared to English, ASL has …

Deaf Translators: What Are They Thinking?, Janis Cole Ms.

Journal of Interpretation

The examination of work performed by Deaf translators in creating translations between written texts and signed languages is an emerging area of inquiry in Translation Studies. Deaf people have been performing ad hoc translations within their community for hundreds of years (Adam, Carty & Stone, 2011; Bartley & Stone, 2008). More recently, Deaf translators have begun to work as paid professionals, creating a new subfield of Translation Studies, one that, to date, is largely unexplored. Using qualitative data, this pilot study examines the thought processes of two Deaf individuals in the rendering of an academic text from written English into …