DIALECT VARIATION
The reason why I started this project is because when I started to learn ASL I noticed that a few signs we learned were considered "more feminine" than others. For instance the sign for "eww" is not often seen from men. As I started to learn about Linguistics at CU I realized that things like this can contribute to dialect.
There is dialectal variation in ASL from state to state in the US, many signs are essentially the same but may include slightly different handshape, movement, a regional cultural significance, ect. Dialect in spoken English leads to assumptions on the hearer's part about the speaker. Likewise, someone's use of ASL can give others an idea of what part of the US they are from, what religion they have, their ethnicity, ect. My thought is: if cues like this can be gained from just seeing someone sign then why not gender identity and sexuality?
My hypothesis is that my dialect, the words I learned should indicate that I am a cisgender (see the glossary link on the LGBTQIA page) hearing person from Colorado. This website is being established in the hope that I can prove or dispel this theory. Many people think that women and mean speak English differently, but we don't. There are stereotypes associated with sexuality and gender, and there are also different situations where every person will change their speech to suit a population they are with. Changes like this are not unique to one gender, instead they reflect professionalism, status, identity, and many other things. Instead of this being an exploration into the gender binary, I'd like people to see this website as an exploration of identity, how it can be represented in many different facets of one's life and the way that language (especially an amazing and expressive language like ASL) can be a tool for that representation.
There is dialectal variation in ASL from state to state in the US, many signs are essentially the same but may include slightly different handshape, movement, a regional cultural significance, ect. Dialect in spoken English leads to assumptions on the hearer's part about the speaker. Likewise, someone's use of ASL can give others an idea of what part of the US they are from, what religion they have, their ethnicity, ect. My thought is: if cues like this can be gained from just seeing someone sign then why not gender identity and sexuality?
My hypothesis is that my dialect, the words I learned should indicate that I am a cisgender (see the glossary link on the LGBTQIA page) hearing person from Colorado. This website is being established in the hope that I can prove or dispel this theory. Many people think that women and mean speak English differently, but we don't. There are stereotypes associated with sexuality and gender, and there are also different situations where every person will change their speech to suit a population they are with. Changes like this are not unique to one gender, instead they reflect professionalism, status, identity, and many other things. Instead of this being an exploration into the gender binary, I'd like people to see this website as an exploration of identity, how it can be represented in many different facets of one's life and the way that language (especially an amazing and expressive language like ASL) can be a tool for that representation.