style

 to  accommodate  the  ASL  recognition  skills  of  the  hearing  people  in  the  room  (Emmory  

et  al.  2005).  

Eliciting  natural  ASL  utterances  requires  stimuli  that  are  both  free  of  English  

language  and  void  of  extraneous  details.  An  effective  approach  is  the  creation  of  “tiny  

stories”  which  would  elicit  utterances  containing  the  selected  nonmanual  signals.  Graphical  

portrayals  of  the  stories  ensure  there  is  no  influence  of  English.  Storyboards  depict  the  

salient  details  of  each  scenario  using  illustrations,  instead  of  photographs,  to  reduce  

extraneous  visual  influence.    Figure  10  shows  the  two  stories  used  in  the  elicitation.        

Figure  10:  Storyboards  used  to  elicit  utterances  

The  first  story  depicts  a  character  walking  into  a  diner.  He  pays  a  small  amount  of  

money  for  a  very  large  cup  of  coffee  and  is  pleased  with  the  deal.  The  story  is  intended  to  

elicit  an  example  of  the  CHA  nonmanual  signal  signed  happily.  In  the  second  story,  the  

character  enters  a  bistro  in  which  he  is  angry  because  a  small  cup  of  coffee  costs  a  lot  of  

money.  The  purpose  of  the  story  is  to  elicit  an  example  of  the  OO  nonmanual  signed  angrily.  

Deaf  ASL  instructors  in  the  interpreting  program  of  Columbia  College,  Chicago  

volunteered  to  be  filmed.  Filming  took  place  in  a  reserved  room  at  Columbia  College  in  

Chicago.  All  six  informants  and  the  videographer  were  Deaf  and  fluent  in  ASL.  Prior  to  the  

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