Empirical data and data interpretation

Before moving on to discuss the data that have been collected in order to conduct this investigation, it is necessary to delineate the interpretive framework within which decisions concerning the research design are made, and data are analysed. This is particularly so given that the fieldsites for the investigation are located in a different country, and the culture of the target communities is distinct from my own. Branson and Miller (2004:15) argue that foreign academics have a tendency to

bring with them a large amount of cultural baggage, an epistemological orientation, and cosmological premises that redefine the world in a Western image.

Further, they suggest that, previously, the condition of the Indonesian deaf community has deteriorated as a result of external input. In response to this, I seek to acknowledge both the internal and external sources of knowledge that shape the interpretive framework of this investigation.

Several internal sources are relevant. First, my knowledge of deaf culture and sign language, as a deaf sign language user, shape this investigation in many ways. Having observed the ways in which language documentation has improved the situation of deaf people in the UK, I am keenly aware of the need for such documentation, and the ethical considerations presented in 3.7 are a reflection of my views of the way in which such documentation should be conducted. Secondly, as a fluent user of BSL with knowledge of other sign languages, I am able to make recourse to introspection when analysing sign language data, in the same way that spoken language linguists – consciously or not – use their understanding of one or more spoken languages (Talmy, 2007). I also acknowledge and refer to my own identities, as a deaf sign language researcher, and as a user of spoken languages, when considering questions of language identity.

Thirdly, I rely upon linguistic and cultural knowledge acquired during my time as a volunteer working with Indonesian deaf communities for two years from 2007, which includes my proficiency in Indonesian sign language varieties. I have regarded this knowledge as both useful

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and incomplete, to which further knowledge and insights must be added, and misconceptions supplanted – for example, through observation during the course of fieldwork. As a means of facilitating this process, I have kept a field diary, which has been used as a methodological tool to capture observations and reflections on data collection and transcription. The use of such a diary incorporates elements of linguistic ethnography, which includes ‘interpretive approaches from within anthropology, applied linguistics and sociology’ (Creese, 2008:229).

External sources of knowledge have been acquired and developed through several means, the most important of which has been an ongoing dialogue with my three research consultants, Muhammad Isnaini, Jayeng Pranoto, and Oktaviani Wulansari. The research design was created and revised continually in light of discussions with the three consultants, who have been an invaluable source of ideas, feedback and constructive criticism. In particular, the use of a reflective transcription process (see 3.5) has prompted many questions, insights and observations, and many hypotheses have been explored and developed further – or rejected – through discussion with research consultants. Another important external source of knowledge is the academic community. Engagement with this community has been facilitated through the presentation of different parts of this thesis at conferences, and through my own network of academic contacts, which includes my supervisors and peers (see the Acknowledgments for further details).

In line with the approaches described in 3.1.1, and in order to meet the aims of the investigation as expressed through the research questions (1.6), four types of data have been collected: spontaneous linguistic data; elicited linguistic data; sociohistorical data; and metadata. The bulk of the analysis for this investigation, presented in chapters 5 and 6, are based on the analysis of spontaneous data, and with that in mind, most of chapter 3 is concerned with the collection and analysis of those data. An overview of the four types of data is given below.

i) Spontaneous linguistic data

Most of the Corpus of Indonesian Sign Language Varieties (CISLV) comprises spontaneous data, where informants are filmed in dyads, triads or tetrads discussing topics that occur naturally. These data were used to gain an insight into the linguistic structures of each variety.

ii) Elicited linguistic data

Some of the data in the CISLV have been elicited, notably for target domains where whole paradigms do not occur in spontaneous conversation. In particular, data have been collected for the semantic domains of numerals and colour terms. For these domains, data were elicited using games devised as part of the Sign Linguistic typology Project (2010-2014) conducted by the

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iSLanDS Institute (Zeshan & Sagara, forthcoming).50 _{Findings from the analysis of these data}

have been written up separately for numerals and colour terms (Palfreyman, forthcoming) and are referred to as appropriate in chapter 4.

The corpus includes another kind of elicited data. A 53-minute session was conducted where three Solonese signers reflected on mouth gestures that they routinely use. The decision to do this was made after it became apparent that some informants were not using mouth gestures as freely as they usually do when not being filmed (see section 3.3 on the Observer’s Paradox). The mouth gestures data are part of the CISLV, but are not central to the investigation presented in this thesis, and so these data are not described further here. It is intended that further research will be conducted in the future using this dataset.

iii) Sociohistorical data

In addition to the collection of linguistic data and metadata, sociohistorical data have also been collected, with a view to documenting the historic development of the Indonesian sign community. This is the central concern of chapter 4, and the findings presented in that chapter inform the answer to RQ3, which makes a link between sociolinguistic findings and the history of language contact between sub-communities across Indonesia. The sociohistorical sources that have been used for this analysis are introduced in section 4.1.

iv) Metadata

The collection of metadata, or ‘structured data about data’ (Duval et al., 2002), is necessary if linguistic data are to have sociolinguistic value; linguistic data alone precludes the possibility of conducting sociolinguistic research, and Burnard (2004:5) argues that

the social context … within which each of the language samples making up a corpus was produced or received is arguably at least as significant as any of its intrinsic linguistic properties – if indeed the two can be entirely distinguished.

Descriptive metadata were collected systematically from all informants through interviews covering details of their upbringing and sociolinguistic background. This includes the following:

 name

 sex

 age

 place of birth

 school(s) attended

 other parts of Indonesia where they have lived or visited

 details of any other deaf family members

 current employment

 deaf organisational membership

The main reason for collecting metadata by means of an interview rather than in written form was to obviate the need for signers to engage with text, given that many signers have a low level of

50 _{See www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explore/projects/sign_language_typology.php for further information}

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literacy skills. Some interviews were conducted on film – which provided additional linguistic data, as informants responded to questions freely – but in Makassar it became necessary to record metadata directly into a computer file due to the large numbers of informants who came forward. The metadata have been used in several ways. First, once a signer’s background was known in full, it was possible to exclude from analysis those texts produced by signers who had recently moved into the region in question – Solo, or Makassar – on the grounds that these data are unlikely to be representative of that area. Secondly, metadata were used in order to select texts for transcription and annotation, ensuring that the resulting sample is as balanced as possible (see 3.3.3). Thirdly, the metadata enable the inclusion of social factor groups in the quantitative analyses presented in chapters 5 and 6, where the possibility of a correlation between dependent linguistic variables and independent social variables is investigated.

More generally, descriptive metadata enable a researcher to build up a picture of the community of informants. For example, the metadata show that none of the Makassarese informants have deaf parents, but that 10 out of 20 have one or more deaf siblings. It is also clear from the metadata that most of the Makassarese informants attended one of two schools, in Cendrawasih and Pembina. Crucially, the collection and storage of metadata alongside linguistic data makes it possible to pursue other lines of enquiry in future. Further details based on the metadata are given in sections 3.3 and 3.5.