Debra L. Cole, ASL, Linguistics and Interpretation

This proposal is a study that would reveal more information about the passive voice in American Sign Language (ASL).

In general terms, passive voice is a grammatical feature of a sentence in which the subject receives, not makes, the action of the verb. Not all languages have passive voice feature (Arabic languages, for example). Questions have been raised about whether ASL has passive voice. Liddell (personal conversation, 1999) stated that not much evidence has been produced to support the idea that there is passive voice in ASL. It has been generally accepted that, in ASL, there is almost always pronominalization to show the doer and receiver of the action (Anderson, 1993). To date, no ASL linguistic research has been found to specifically seek passive sentences in ASL.

My proposed study will include videotaping deaf ASL users as they tell stories about the English passages and pictures given to them. Then, I will determine which ASL utterances contain a subject receiving action of a verb. After such utterances are collected, I will transcribe each, describe characteristics of all verbs, determine whether they fit the characteristics of passive voice, and discuss implications this study may hold for ASL and educational linguistics.