African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as spoken in the US is a unique dialect and, since it is often viewed as inferior to Standard English, interpreters/translators have limited if any training in recognizing and understanding its common features. Specifically, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters face challenges when interpreting for an AAVE speaker - either omitting content or skewing meaning of concepts.
My research hopes to prove the value of that dialect by conducting a mixed methods study by using corpus AAVE speech and obtaining unrehearsed interpretations of this corpus into ASL.