Research at
Gallaudet University
2005 - 2006

Diachronic Change in ASL

Status: Ongoing Begin date: Oct 1, 2004 End date: No set date

Description

This project will scan and digitize several important historical documents related to the development of ASL from Old French Sign Language to its current state. The pictures and descriptions of the old signs will be entered in the SignType database. Analytic data for each sign based on these pictures and descriptions will also be entered, and will be compared with data we already possess for ASL from the 1950s and ASL from the 1990s. The initial analytic goal is to determine if there are significant trends over time in the number of one-handed and two-handed signs. The investigators have completed the scanning of the plates for the J. Schuyler long dictionary. The Gallaudet Library Archives had the originals of most of the plates, so the scans are of very good quality. Each scan, which consisted of multiple pictures, was then split so that the resulting graphics files had a picture or pictures for one sign only. These files, with the English glosses for the signs, were inserted in the SignType sample database at www.signtype.info. The text descriptions of each sign, from the same dictionary, have also been scanned in and converted to editable text, using OCR software. The next step will be to use these text descriptions, and the plates, to provide analytical notations of phonological characteristics of the sign, beginning with notating which signs are made with one hand and which with two hands.

Investigators