Author

Jason Hopkins

Date of Award

8-1-2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Linguistics

First Advisor

J. Albert Bickford

Abstract

Sign language video recordings have limited extensibility when compared with live, face-to-face communication by signers. In an effort to improve the extensibility of video recordings this study explores the possibility of leveraging a common meaning negotiation technique, depictional signing, to increase understanding of recorded texts. In an effort to gauge the understanding of depictional signing compared to lexical signing a Recorded Text Test was devised using two texts, one with a high number of visual depictions, the other with a high number of lexical signs. While a comparison of the results of the two tests did not substantiate the hypothesis for reasons that appear to have introduced spurious results, the comparisons of the two styles of signing within each story did confirm the hypothesis.

Share

COinS