ABSTRACT

There are several issues to consider when conducting sociolinguistic interviews for sign language projects, including the selection of subjects, the use of contact people, the history of deaf education and how research has taken place in Deaf communities, and the anonymity of research subjects. The differences in social characteristics when applied to Deaf communities are of two types. The first type includes characteristics, such as age and region, that may have a different meaning when the history of Deaf communities is taken into account. The second type includes characteristics such as language background that are unique to Deaf communities. The selection of subjects for sociolinguistic studies of sign languages must take into account the meaning of age, ethnicity, and region in Deaf communities in order for the resulting analyses to be meaningful. Finally, all aspects of doing sociolinguistic interviews in Deaf communities are being affected by advances in technology.