Black ASL Project Corpus
The Black ASL Project Corpus is a collection of videos of conversational BASLBlack American Sign Language in the South of the United States. The corpus was collected in the course of a four-year project led by Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas and Robert Bayley.
The data was elicited with picture cards, cartoon stories, structured interviews and a free conversation. A black researcher was present as interviewer, except for free conversations which were without third parties present.
Signers were recorded in groups at social events such as picnics, class reunions and breaks at the Black Deaf Advocates conference. Filming took place from 2007 to 2008.
Additionally, for a study on narrative styles, 12 White signers were recruted for cartoon retellings.
| Language | Black American Sign Language |
|---|---|
| Size | at least 36 hours of recording |
| Participants |
96 signers
Deaf Black two age groups: 35 years and younger and 55 years and oldern (conference members exempt) From six states: North Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Virginia, Louisiana 12 White signers for additional analysis |
| Metadata Format | information not available |
| Translation | information not available |
| Annotation | information not available |
| Data Format | information not available |
| Licence | information not available |
| Access | information not available |
| Webpage |
http://blackaslproject.gallaudet.edu/BlackASLProject/Welcome.html 
|
| Institution | Department of Linguistics, Department of ASL and Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University |
| Publications |
McCaskill et al. (2011) (+ companion videos )
Hill (2017) |
Cite as
information not available
References
Primary references
- Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, Joseph Hill (2011). "The hidden treasure of Black ASL: its history and structure". 192 pp. ISBN: 978-1-56368-489-0.
- Joseph Hill (2017). "The Importance of the Sociohistorical Context in Sociolinguistics: The Case of Black ASL". In: Sign Language Studies 18(1). Gallaudet University Press, pp. 41-57. ISSN: 0302-1475. DOI: 10.1353/sls.2017.0020.
This entry was last modified on 7 March 2025.