• Starting Sign Language Research from Scratch
• Rachel I. Mayberry (bio)

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the environment of sign language research when I began my graduate studies at McGill University is to note the physical labor involved. There were no internet or digital archives, and I spent a lot of time in the library searching for books and journals after first figuring out which floor and shelf the item's Dewey Decimal number pointed to. Journals could not be checked out, so notes had to be taken by hand, or exact change was required for xeroxing, if you could locate a machine. Statistical data analysis by computer was possible, but only by mainframe because desktops hadn't been invented yet. Videotaping of sign language was possible using huge reel-to-reel and then cassette recorders on large carts with heavy TVs and only somewhat less-bulky cameras and recording equipment.

My first sign language experiment was for a course titled Language and Thought with Professor John Macnamara (1977). I compared concreteness ratings for English words with iconicity ratings for their ASL translations, which I gathered from sign-naïve undergraduate students. To create the experiment, I spliced reel-to-reel black-and-white videotape by hand with a razor blade and then used special tape to rearrange the segments for the experiment. I analyzed the data with paper, pencil, and a calculator. Manuscript preparation was tedious too, requiring typing everything out on paper, including tables, and making figures by hand with graph paper and either drawing them or using press-on symbols and letters. I have wondered how many [End Page 263] potential researchers might have gotten lost along this trail of work. But my father always said that I was stubborn, so I slogged through. More important than the labor, however, were the teachers and scholars who helped me along the way.

Before attending McGill University, I had attended Washington University, where I came across the dictionary of signs with black-and-white photographs that Stokoe, Casterline, and Croneberg (1976/1965) had compiled using a coding system they had devised to represent sign structure. This was the only research I located in the library to help me explain sign language to the then-director of the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID), Richard Silverman (of Davis and Silverman 1978), who had asked me to teach him sign language once a week and made me promise not to tell a soul because sign language was forbidden. The institute included an oral school for deaf children, a speech and hearing clinic, graduate programs in deaf education, audiology, speech pathology, and research programs and faculty who primarily studied the sensory, perceptual, and motor mechanisms underlying speech and hearing. I have little memory of our meetings, except that he encouraged me to pursue sign language research by saying, "If we were to use sign language tomorrow, what should we expect from our students, from our teachers? You could study that." The idea was as intriguing as it was daunting. As a child, I hated questions about sign language and my parents' deafness from hearing adults, because I didn't know how to answer them.

I worked as a dormitory assistant at CID while doing my master's degree. The experience reminded me daily of how imperative sign language was. Meals in the dining room were family style, and I was responsible for a table of eight students ranging in age from five to sixteen, all of whom were deaf and none of whom knew any sign language, and it was forbidden to sign to them. Some of the students could speak intelligibly and understood speech, but many others could not. There was a lot of gesturing and exaggerated oral gesticulation, and the students were good at helping one another understand what was being said among themselves and the staff. Saturday mornings, I was responsible for doing arts and crafts projects with the older students, some of whom spoke intelligibly and some who could not. Sunday afternoons, I was responsible for the "baby boys," the youngest [End Page 264] boys in the dorm, ages four to five. Another graduate student and I...

• 从头开始手语研究
• 雷切尔·梅伯里 (简介)

当我开始在麦吉尔大学攻读研究生时，也许最好的方式来说明手语研究环境是注意所涉及的体力劳动。没有互联网或数字档案，在首先弄清楚该项目的杜威十进制数字指向哪个楼层和书架后，我花了很多时间在图书馆搜索书籍和期刊。日记无法借出，因此必须用手记笔记，或者如果您能找到机器，则需要复印精确的零钱。通过计算机进行统计数据分析是可能的，但只能通过大型机进行，因为台式机尚未发明。手语的录像可以使用巨大的卷轴到卷轴，然后使用大型推车上的盒式录音机，配有重型电视和体积较小的相机和录音设备。

我的第一个手语实验是约翰·麦克纳马拉教授的一门名为“语言与思想”的课程（1977 年）。我将英语单词的具体性评级与美国手语翻译的象似性评级进行了比较，这些评级是我从不懂手语的本科生那里收集的。为了进行实验，我用刀片手工拼接卷轴黑白录像带，然后使用特殊胶带重新排列实验片段。我用纸、铅笔和计算器分析了数据。手稿的准备也很乏味，需要在纸上打印所有内容，包括表格，并用方格纸手工制作图形，然后绘制它们或使用压印符号和字母。我想知道有多少[结束第263页]潜在的研究人员可能在这条工作道路上迷失了方向。但父亲总说我很固执，所以我才勉强坚持了下来。然而，比劳动更重要的是一路上帮助我的老师和学者。

在进入麦吉尔大学之前，我曾就读于华盛顿大学，在那里我偶然发现了 Stokoe、Casterline 和 Croneberg（1976/1965）使用他们设计的代表符号的编码系统编制的带有黑白照片的符号词典。结构。这是我在图书馆找到的唯一一份可以帮助我向时任中央聋人研究所 (CID) 所长理查德·西尔弗曼 (Richard Silverman，来自 Davis and Silverman 1978) 解释手语的研究，他曾要求我教他手语每周一次语言，让我保证不会告诉任何人，因为手语是被禁止的。该研究所包括聋哑儿童口腔学校、言语和听力诊所、聋人教育、听力学、言语病理学研究生项目以及主要研究言语和听力基础的感觉、知觉和运动机制的研究项目和教员。我对我们的会面没什么记忆，只记得他鼓励我进行手语研究，他说：“如果我们明天使用手语，我们应该对我们的学生、我们的老师有什么期望？你可以研究一下。” 这个想法既有趣又令人畏惧。当我还是个孩子的时候，我讨厌关于手语的问题，也讨厌我父母因为大人说话而失聪，因为我不知道如何回答。

我在攻读硕士学位期间曾在 CID 担任宿舍助理。这次经历每天都提醒我手语是多么重要。餐厅里的饭菜是家庭式的，我负责一桌八个学生，年龄从五岁到十六岁不等，他们都是聋哑人，不会手语，不准给他们手语。有些学生可以清晰地说话并理解言语，但其他许多学生则不能。有很多手势和夸张的口头手势，学生们善于互相帮助理解他们自己和工作人员之间所说的内容。周六早上，我负责和高年级的学生一起做艺术和手工艺项目，他们中有些人能说得清楚，有些人则听不懂。周日下午，我负责照顾“男婴”，即宿舍里最小的[完第264页]男孩，年龄四到五岁。我和另一个研究生...