It's Not What You Sign, It's How You Sign It: Politeness in American Sign Language

249 Pages·2007·1.09 MB·English

by  Jack Hoza

It’s Not
What
Sign
You ,
It’s
Politeness in
American Sign
How
Language
You
Sign It
Jack Hoza
I ’ N
T S OT
W Y S ,
HAT OU IGN
I ’ H
T S OW
Y S I
OU IGN T
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I ’ N
T S OT
W Y S ,
HAT OU IGN
I ’ H
T S OW
Y S I
OU IGN T
Politeness in American Sign Language
Jack Hoza
Gallaudet University Press
WASHINGTON, D.C.
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Gallaudet University Press
Washington, D.C. 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2007 by Gallaudet University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoza, Jack.
It’s not what you sign, it’s how you sign it : politeness in American Sign
Language / Jack Hoza.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-56368-352-7 (alk. paper)
1. American Sign Language. 2. Politeness (Linguistics) I. Title.
HV2474.H69 2007
419′.7—dc22
2007009631
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements for American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
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To Paul, Ben, and Ian
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Politeness—It’s How You Say It 1
2 Exploring Linguistic Strategies 32
3 Requests In ASL And English 63
4 Rejections In ASL And English 106
5 Two Nonmanual Modifiers That Mitigate Smaller
Threats To Face 126
6 Three Nonmanual Modifiers That Mitigate More Severe
Threats To Face 149
7 Language Fluency And Politeness 188
8 Why It Matters How You Say It 202
Appendix I: Transcription Conventions 215
Appendix II: Discourse Completion Test 218
Appendix III: Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness
Strategies Arranged by the Categories Used in This Book 221
References 225
Index 231
vii
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Acknowledgments
I am pleased to acknowledge the support and guidance of the many
people who have made this research and the publication of this book
possible. Numerous people have been instrumental in my work and
have helped shape my understanding of cross-cultural communica-
tion and linguistic inquiry.
I am thankful for my bilingual (ASL/English) family who initiated
my journey into the world of language study. I want to thank my
Deaf parents, Raymond and Dorothy Hoza, and my two Deaf sib-
lings, Larry and Mike, for their gift of ASL and the Deaf world. Also,
I wish to thank my hearing siblings, Peggy, Linda, Don, Pat, and
Tim, for sharing this bilingual/bicultural ride with me and for deep-
ening my awareness and appreciation of life as a bilingual/bicultural
person.
My professional thinking has been shaped by too many people to
list here. However, I do want to acknowledge the contributions and
help from the many Deaf people, interpreters, and linguists whom it
has been my pleasure to know over the years. In particular, I am in-
debted to Dr. Cathy O’Connor at Boston University for her years of
support and guidance, and for sharing her expertise in the field of
sociolinguistics. She largely informed my understanding of linguistic
politeness, and her mentorship and guidance were crucial to fine-
tuning the research design and the implementation of the study. I am
also grateful for the collegiality, support, and academic direction I re-
ceived during my stint with the Boston University ASL Linguistics
Project—especially Dr. Carol Neidle and Dr. Ben Bahan—for what
they taught me about strict adherence to linguistic inquiry.
I would also like to thank Daniel Roush for sharing his master’s
thesis with me. In particular, his discovery of the association between
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