Publications
Stark, Litza. Analyzing the Interlanguage of ASL Natives. Undergraduate Honors Thesis, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, Spring 2001.ABSTRACT:
Deaf students learning English face a unique and daunting array of challenges because of the vast distance between signed ASL and written English. The ICICLE system would provide an automated tutor to address and remedy some of these difficulties. Central to the ICICLE system is the proposed user modeling component, which would parse input and provide tutorial feedback using (a) knowledge of the universal patterns of language acquisition, and (b) records of the individual users past behavior. In order to develop a model of the syntax of Deaf students learning written English, we undertook this study. Using writing samples gathered from Deaf students that had been scored according to the Test of Written English, we tabulated individual syntactic errors on the sentence level and conducted MANOVA tests and factor analysis. We found differences in the occurrence of errors across proficiency levels based on the MANOVA test. From the factor analysis, we found classes of errors that were most characteristic of the proficiency levels, and which could be used to build a concrete model of the typical users syntax.