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Black American Sign Language

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I've listed this article for peer review because I hope to improve it to FA status, or at least as close as possible. I'm particularly interested in feedback on comprehensiveness, prose, and structure.

Thanks, Wugapodes (talk) 21:18, 23 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from RO

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Lead
  • I know it's called Black American Sign Language, but I can't help but feel "Black people" should be African Americans. The NAACP has negro in their name, but they don't use it to refer to those they help.
This is the term used in modern scholarship, most notably because Black doesn't necessarily equal African American. African American is a subset of Black people. "African American" denotes those whose ancestors came from Africa during the African diaspora, while "Black" denotes a large group of non-White people and includes Black Latin Americans (particularly from Hispanola), African immigrants such as Nigerian-Americans and Ghanaian-Americans, and so on. While the two are considered the same in colloquial speech, the terms have distinct meanings in this context. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is still used by signers in southern states despite schools being legally desegregated.
This is very misleading, because many schools are even more segregated today then they were before Brown v. Board of Education.
While public schools are still very segregated because of housing policies and district lines, Deaf schools are regional and so the rates of segregation at Deaf schools may be different than in the general population (no systematic study has been done to this effect though). For example, there is only one school for the deaf in all of Alabama. So saying anything else would be OR as all we know is that it is still used and that schools have legally integrated. We don't know to what to degree integration has occurred, but we know that it has legally occurred. This is a juxtaposition made by the sources, though no source has come to a conclusion on the significance. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
History
  • Even if you stay with "black", it shouldn't be capitalized.
Capitalization follows the APA style guide. Is there a wiki-specific MOS that outlines a contrary style to follow? Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not to my knowledge, but are you certain that APA explicitly says to cap "black" when used in this way.? RO(talk) 22:30, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. It says to capitalize both "Black" and "White" as they, like other racial and ethnic groups (e.g. Latino, Caucasian, and African American), are proper nouns, not adjectives. I don't have access to the guide at the moment for an exact quote and citation, but I can get it tomorrow. Wugapodes (talk) 03:38, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the quote: "Racial and ethnic groups are designated by proper nouns and are capitalized. Therefore, use Black and White instead of black and white" [emphasis original]. American Psychological Association (2010), Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6 ed.), Washington, D.C., p. 75, ISBN 1-4338-0561-8{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Okay. That's good enough for me, but I'm a CMoS gal, and frankly Wikipedia's style guide is closely-based on CMoS, who says do not cap white or black in this usage. Having said that, I'm not aware of an explicit suggestion by the Wikipedia MoS to follow one or the other style, so you should be okay I guess. I'd expect this is come up at GAN or FAC though. RO(talk) 18:18, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • however
Avoid using "however" in formal writing.
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • recalls being challenged with understanding
How about, "recalls the challenge of understanding".
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see lots of good opportunities for redlinks, such as Dr. Carolyn McCaskill, Carl Cronenberg, and Dr. Platt Skinner, among others.
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Work has continued to be done on BASL, with the Black ASL Project at Gallaudet University publishing The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL, a book describing the development and features of BASL.[1]
This is a run-on.
Fixed. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Syntax
  • syntactic repetition
This is fascinating, but I'm not sure there is enough detail for casual readers. If you can source it, I'd add a little more here.
I'll look at the source again and see what can be added. There probably was a little more to it that I left out. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • constructed dialogue
You redlinked "constructed action", maybe this should be redlinked too.
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • These results were not reproduced in a later study into constructed action and constructed dialogue by McCaskill which found that Black signers
The nonrestrictive clause starting with "which" should be set off with a comma.
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • however there was a great deal
Avoid "however" in formal writing.
Lexical variation
  • Is there a main article for this? Is so link to it, if not consider a redlink.
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • the dialect spoken by African Americans and the dialect signed by the African American (Black) Deaf.
As I said above, I'd go with African American over Black.
African American English (AAE) is called AAE because African Americans speak it, but not all Black people do. For example, Nigerian Americans do not speak AAE, and neither do Black Latin Americans like Haitian Americans and Dominicans. AAE is largely specific to African Americans, but is not extensible to all Black people. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • A more recent study by McCaskill
Drop "more" as superfluous.
Done. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Conclusion

This is a great little article. My main concern is that there could be more detail, but I haven't looked at the available source material. My gut instinct is that this would be an issue at GA, so be sure to double check the sources before going there. Nicely done; keep up the great work! RO(talk) 16:57, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rationalobserver: Thanks for the review! I've addressed your points above. Regarding the lack of detail, there is actually rather little data available on BASL. McCaskill (2011) is the first and only descriptive study of the dialect on a large scale basis. Previous work focused on limited populations or aspects of the dialect, but BASL has not been very thoroughly studied. Wugapodes (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Tintor2 (talk) 00
27, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

The article looks really good but there are somethings that bothered me.

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