Crowe Kathryn, Marschark Marc, McLeod Sharynne
National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology , Rochester , USA.
School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University , Bathurst , Australia.
Clin Linguist Phon. 2019;33(10-11):991-1008. doi: 10.1080/02699206.2019.1600169. Epub 2019 Apr 24.
Intelligibility of spoken languages is a widely discussed construct; however, intelligibility, as it pertains to signed languages, has rarely been considered. This study provides an initial investigation of the construct of intelligibility in American Sign Language (ASL) and evaluates potential measures for self-report and expert ratings of sign intelligibility that examined the frequency of understanding, amount of understanding, and ease of understanding. Participants were 66 college students (42 Deaf, 24 hearing) who had self-rated ASL skills ranging from poor to excellent. Participants rated their own intelligibility in ASL and then provided a signed language sample through a picture description task. Language samples were reviewed by an expert rater and measures of intelligibility were completed. Results indicated that expert ratings of sign intelligibility across all measures were significantly and positively correlated. Understanding of the signer was predicted by the amount of understanding, frequency of understanding, and ASL production skills, while understanding the picture being described was predicted by ease of understanding and ASL grammar skills. Self- and expert ratings of sign intelligibility using the ASL version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale were not significantly different. Self-report of sign intelligibility for viewers of different familiarity using the ICS-ASL was found not to be feasible due to many participants not being in contact with ASL users in the relationships defined by the measure. In conclusion, this preliminary investigation suggests that sign intelligibility is a construct worthy of further investigation.
口语的可理解性是一个被广泛讨论的概念；然而，与手语相关的可理解性却很少被考虑。本研究对美国手语（ASL）的可理解性概念进行了初步调查，并评估了用于自我报告和专家对手语可理解性评分的潜在指标，这些指标考察了理解频率、理解程度和理解难易程度。参与者是66名大学生（42名聋人，24名听力正常者），他们对自己的美国手语技能自评从差到优秀不等。参与者对自己在美国手语中的可理解性进行评分，然后通过图片描述任务提供一个手语样本。语言样本由一位专家评分员进行评审，并完成可理解性的测量。结果表明，所有指标的手语可理解性专家评分都显著正相关。对手语者的理解由理解程度、理解频率和美国手语表达技能预测，而对所描述图片的理解由理解难易程度和美国手语语法技能预测。使用美国手语版语境下可理解性量表进行的手语可理解性自我评分和专家评分没有显著差异。由于许多参与者在所测量定义的关系中没有与美国手语使用者接触，因此发现使用ICS-ASL对不同熟悉程度的观众进行手语可理解性的自我报告是不可行的。总之，这项初步调查表明，手语可理解性是一个值得进一步研究的概念。
