29/04/25 - Felicia Bisnath (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences)
Title: "Language contact and attitudes to mouthing among deaf and hard-of-hearing users of American Sign Language in the United States"
Abstract
In this presentation I will summarise some of my dissertation research investigating English language experience among signers of American Sign Language (ASL) in the United States and their attitudes to English mouthing. Language contact is ubiquitous in language use and can be explained by centering language users and appealing to language ideologies. This dissertation draws on sign language linguistics, social perception (of spoken languages), and anthropology to ask, Who thinks what about English mouthing in ASL? Mouthing here refers to language contact in the form of mouth patterns in sign languages that are recognisable as linked to (specific) spoken language words. Variation in experiences with ASL and English in the DHH community and mouthing have not received much treatment in ASL linguistics. This dissertation contributes to both topics by (i) capturing and categorising heterogeneity in DHH experience with ASL and English in the United States using cluster analysis and (ii) exploring the relationship between DHH experiences and attitude to mouthing using a Matched Guise Task.
