Cued American English: A Variety in the Visual Mode

Cued American English (CAE) is a visual variety of English derived from a mode of communication called Cued Speech (CS). CS, or cueing, is a system of communication for use with the deaf, which consists of hand shapes, hand placements, and mouth shapes that signify the phonemic information conventionally conveyed through speech in spoken languages. In small language communities in the United States, native deaf users of CAE and those who communicate with them have facilitated the development of a natural variety of English that is specific to the mode of cueing. This paper defines CAE as a variety of English, including its features, functional spectrum, social acquisition, code switching protocols, and intersection with English as a Second Language in the American Deaf community. The author discusses grammatical accommodations and visual prosodic features, reviews relevant research, and describes the CS system in detail as a means by which cueing maps to and facilitates natural language.