HOW THE COMMON PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE SIGN LANGUAGE OF THE DEAF STUDENT IN SLB B BINA ASIH BONDOWOSO

Abstract

This thesis analyses a sign language in SLB – B Bina Asih Bondowoso. Sign language is used to communicate between the teacher and deaf students in a classroom discourse. The objectives of this study are to know how many coefficient percentages of the abilities of the common people understanding about sign language, and to show how the way of the common people in understanding of the deaf students languages. The analysis is based on visual signal and association. This study uses mixed method, qualitative that makes groups into correct, close, incorrect and no answer by using table format. and quantitative that analyses the factor why the respondents guess correct, close, incorrect, and no answer, to analyze the data. This research views this term from the psycholinguistic point of view which focuses on sign language as visual communication by observing the common people who guess the signs as visual signals in every word. It begins by giving questionnaire to the students of English Department by watching videos of one of the students in SLB-B Bina Asih Bondowoso. The data were taken from the questionnaire. It asks the respondents to guess the meaning of the signs that were shown by the model in the video. The time allocation is 10 minutes to write the answer in the answer sheet. However, there were some respondents who exceed the time. It happened because there were two obstacles in guessing. The first, there are some movements that are needed for repetition. The second, the respondents still need more time to think in looking for the correct answer. It proves the opinion of Arnold & Mills (2001:187). They say that in this process of receiving signed message, it needs retained long visual sequences of hand shape in working memory to get the meaning of the messages. The result shows that the numbers of personal interpretations are 13 times with the percentage score below 70%, and the cultural interpretations are 16 times with the percentage above 70% while the universal interpretations are 21 times with the percentage score above 80%. As the result, the 50 respondents are generally concluded to use their universal reference of the world to address the signs though somehow it is not the exactly questioned word.