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Writing. To Sign.
What do you mean by langauge communities?
Since the main focus here is captivating the culture of Black ASL through a hearing lens, this may seem a little confusing. If any Linguistic, Psychology, or Sociology majors are friends of yours, they may be able to muster a few definitions. However, more specifically directed to the topic at hand (Black ASL), language communties are bascially a community of languages which all hint on more specific varieties of languages.
Pertaining to Black ASL, langauge communities within the deaf culture are a unique variety of languages. By this I mean that there is no real difference of the definitions of a language community. What is different rather is the unique variety of Black ASL and the study of its foundation and formation over the years.
What's so different or unique about Black ASL?
How do these langauge communities vary by race?
The Black ASL Project tested a variation of syntax & discourse to test the hypothesis: Black Signers make more repetition of use than White Signers. *They also are still reseraching exactly what type of language Black children used at home as a result of them not getting adequate education at school and how these language communities were formed across households.
This is an area that requires more research; there were many Black deaf families in which signing was used, signing which the children brought with them to school. These children no doubt served as sign models, as did White children from deaf families; there were also many children from hearing non-.‐signing families.
Results of the original study can be found here, but researchers were able to conclude that a language community was emerged through Black ASL because of:
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Black ASL is a distinct variety of American Sign Language.
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Black ASL is defined by specific linguistic features and shaped by social and geographic factors.
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Also, not surprisingly, Black ASL is changing as a result of desegregation and mainstreaming.
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