The intersection of African American English and Black American Sign Language

This article reports on the intersection of African American English (AAE) and a variety of American Sign Language (ASL) used by Black signers and known as Black ASL. Based on an extensive videotaped corpus collected from 96 African American signers in the southern United States, we explore the conditions that led to the development of a separate African American variety and document its features. Starting in 1869, 17 states and the District of Columbia had separate schools or departments for Black Deaf children within already-established schools. The last school to desegregate was in Louisiana, in 1978. We filmed Black signers in six of the 17 states, in free conversation and interviews, and we also elicited lexical items. Signers were divided into two groups, those over 55 who attended segregated schools and signers under 35 who attended integrated schools. Of the eight linguistic features investigated, two result from the contact of Black ASL with spoken English: the mouthing of English words and the incorporation of African American words and phrases. Older signers who attended segregated schools mouth very little, while younger signers who attended integrated schools mouth as frequently as young white signers. The young Black signers also spontaneously produce and discuss words and phrases from AAE that have made their way into Black ASL, such as Stop trippin'!, My bad, and Girl, please. The presence of these AAE features in Black ASL shows the effects of attendance in mainstreaming programs starting in the mid-1970s, including contact with hearing AAE speakers, and an increased focus on the learning of spoken English.