<p> On average, students who are deaf do not develop English literacy skills as well as their hearing peers. The linguistic interdependence principle suggests that literacy in American Sign Language (ASL) may improve literacy in English for students who are deaf. However, the Deaf community in the United States has not widely adopted a written form of ASL. This research surveys individuals in the U.S. Deaf community to better understand the opinions surrounding literacy in ASL. </p><p> The survey was presented online, containing both ASL in embedded videos and written English. The survey asked for the participants' demographic information, language and educational background, opinions about reading and writing ASL, and opinions on specific writing systems. Sixty-two surveys were analyzed using Chi-square Goodness of Fit tests and Tests of Independence. </p><p> The results show that those who desire to read and write ASL are in the minority. The respondents were evenly divided among those who supported literacy in ASL, those who opposed it, and those who felt ambivalent about it. The factors that influenced their opinions were (1) the widespread use of a written form of ASL; (2) the value of literacy in ASL; (3) the style of a writing system; (4) writing with other Deaf individuals; (5) the face-to-face culture in the Deaf community; (6) video technology; and (7) the dominance of English. The respondents were highly educated, which may have influenced these results. Surveying a more representative population is necessary to better understand the opinions about literacy in ASL in the U.S. Deaf community.</p>

<p> The present sociophonetic study examines the English variety in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) based upon a 130-speaker sample from Marquette County. The linguistic variables of interest include seven monophthongs and four diphthongs: 1) front lax, 2) low back, and 3) high back monophthongs and 4) short and 5) long diphthongs. The sample is stratified by the predictor variables of heritage-location, bilingualism, age, sex and class. The aim of the thesis is two fold: 1) to determine the extent of potential substrate effects on a 71-speaker older-aged bilingual and monolingual subset of these UP English speakers focusing on the predictor variables of heritage-location and bilingualism, and 2) to determine the extent of potential exogenous influences on an 85-speaker subset of UP English monolingual speakers by focusing on the predictor variables of heritage-location, age, sex and class. All data were extracted from a reading passage task collected during a sociolinguistic interview and measured instrumentally. The findings of this apparent-time data reveal the presence of lingering effects from substrate sources and developing effects from exogenous sources based upon American and Canadian models of diffusion. The linguistic changes-in-progress from above, led by middle-class females, are taking shape in the speech of UP residents of whom are propagating linguistic phenomena typically associated with varieties of Canadian English (i.e., low-back merger, Canadian shift, and Canadian raising); however, the findings also report resistance of such norms by working-class females. Finally, the data also reveal substrate effects demonstrating cases of dialect leveling and maintenance. As a result, the speech spoken in Michigan's Upper Peninsula can presently be described as a unique variety of English comprised of lingering substrate effects as well as exogenous effects modeled from both American and Canadian English linguistic norms.</p>