Documenting Variation in Verb Lexicalization in Ho Chi Minh City Sign Language: Implications for Deaf Education in Viet Nam

Traditionally, Vietnamese hearing people, including educators, have believed that sign languages in Viet Nam are derivative of Vietnamese, especially in terms of how verbs are lexicalized. This has led to miscommunication between hearing people and deaf people, which has negatively affected the education of deaf individuals. This dissertation aimed to explore the differences in verb lexicalization between Ho Chi Minh City Sign Language and Vietnamese by providing the first in-depth descriptive study of verb lexicalization of eating, opening, giving, and going.
This study combined quantitative and qualitative research methods. A stratified sample of deaf people fluent in Ho Chi Minh City Sign language, who live in different regions of Viet Nam, and who vary according to educational level, gender, and age of acquisition, participated in this study. Various instruments were developed to collect free conversational data, elicitation of specific grammatical examples, and judgments of grammaticality. Particular attention was given to comparing the different types of data collected to determine if the deaf participants were actually using the forms they said they were using. The study has documented which verbs in Ho Chi Minh City Sign language can undergo such verb lexicalization and what types of variation occur in verb lexicalization, including the effects of phonological forms of lexicalized verbs on the frequency of verb lexicalization, which verbs affect word order in Ho Chi Minh City Sign language, and the relationship of social variables like region, educational level, and gender to variation in verb lexicalization. The findings should result in a significantly improved understanding of the complexity of Ho Chi Minh City Sign language, better communication with Ho Chi Minh City Sign language users in classrooms, and better sign language interpretation. The study provides best practices for teachers, educators, sign language interpreters, and parents. In the future, more research about the differences between Ho Chi Minh City Sign language and Vietnamese lexicalization is needed.