Abstract:
The proposed topic for this article is gender variation in American Sign Language. In other words, men and women often sign differently when using American Sign Language. Our research will focus on the sign production, facial expressions, and body language chosen by both men and woman. Our research focuses on if and how do men and women sign differently in ASL. With this variation study we will prove that male and female signers sign different through the follow hypotheses: if the affective meaning is more prevalent in female signers than in male signers, then women will be more expressive by means of a larger signing space and more facial expressions when using American Sign Language; if men are using American Sign Language, then they will use less pronouns than women; if women are signing in American Sign Language, then they will use the citation form, while men use a linguistically less formal American Sign Language structure; and if men are using American Sign Language, then they will sign in a lower signing space. To collect our data we will use videos showing female and male signers. These videos will compare and contrast the signing styles …show more content…
To further analyze this finding we looked more into our academic source, “Gender Variation in Sign Production by Users of American Sign Language.” We focused on two image samples of Heather Hamilton’s findings. One of which had a man and woman signing “house,” and the other image had a man and a woman signing “notice” (these examples can be seen in the bibliography). In both samples the women are using the prescriptively accurate, citation form of “house” and “notice.” The men in the samples however are not using the citation form of these signs. Therefore after this analysis we found that women use citation form of ASL more often than
The proposed topic for this article is gender variation in American Sign Language. In other words, men and women often sign differently when using American Sign Language. Our research will focus on the sign production, facial expressions, and body language chosen by both men and woman. Our research focuses on if and how do men and women sign differently in ASL. With this variation study we will prove that male and female signers sign different through the follow hypotheses: if the affective meaning is more prevalent in female signers than in male signers, then women will be more expressive by means of a larger signing space and more facial expressions when using American Sign Language; if men are using American Sign Language, then they will use less pronouns than women; if women are signing in American Sign Language, then they will use the citation form, while men use a linguistically less formal American Sign Language structure; and if men are using American Sign Language, then they will sign in a lower signing space. To collect our data we will use videos showing female and male signers. These videos will compare and contrast the signing styles …show more content…
To further analyze this finding we looked more into our academic source, “Gender Variation in Sign Production by Users of American Sign Language.” We focused on two image samples of Heather Hamilton’s findings. One of which had a man and woman signing “house,” and the other image had a man and a woman signing “notice” (these examples can be seen in the bibliography). In both samples the women are using the prescriptively accurate, citation form of “house” and “notice.” The men in the samples however are not using the citation form of these signs. Therefore after this analysis we found that women use citation form of ASL more often than