This presentation explores various transformations that inform Deaf Studies research, ranging from transformations in deaf networks to larger sign language networks and transformations in applied linguistics, society, and language ideologies, and the related potential impact on sign language policy and revitalisation. After discussing some new research lenses in Deaf Studies, such as visual methods, the presentation suggests some ways forward for Deaf Studies in terms of research priorities and rights discourses.
LINK
This deaf-led work critically explores Deaf Tech, challenging conventional understandings of technologies ‘for’ deaf people as merely assistive and accessible, since these understandings are predominantly embedded in medical and audist ideologies. By employing participatory speculative workshops, deaf participants from different European countries envisioned technologies on Eyeth - a mythical planet inhabited by deaf people - centered on their perspectives and curiosities. The results present a series of alternative socio-technical narratives that illustrate qualitative aspects of technologies desired by deaf people. This study advocates for expanding the scope of deaf technological landscapes, emphasizing the needs of establishing deaf-centered HCI, including the development of methods and concepts that truly prioritize deaf experiences in the design of technologies intended for their use.
MULTIFILE
Due to emancipation process there is need for information on Deaf culture - Is there a Deaf Culture in the Netherlands? - If so what is it? How can we define it? - What are priorities in research? - How best disseminate results in Deaf community? - Lobby for rights of Deaf people (Unesco 1994; UN Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006)
DOCUMENT
This paper presents a look into the issues related to the Deaf community, to sign language and Deaf Studies in the Netherlands over de past 25 years.
DOCUMENT
Deaf scholars have long worked at the margins of academic institutions not designed for them. Designated deaf academic spaces—where deaf ways of knowing, teaching, and communicating are centered—remain rare. This study explores what becomes possible when such a space exists, presenting Dr Deaf as a case study. Drawing on interviews with participants and teachers, we show how deaf epistemologies and pedagogies are enacted through cross-stage responsibility and academic becoming through re-alignment of deaf participants and teachers. We also identify a distinct deaf rhythm that emerges in this space. At the same time, we recognize that these practices are not experienced or valued equally by all participants and teachers: needs, priorities, and ways of engaging differ, and Dr Deaf’s approaches may not resonate for all. Yet its values offer a flexible framework for imagining and sustaining other deaf academic and broader educational spaces.
MULTIFILE
In this paper, we report on interview data collected from 14 Deaf leaders across seven countries (Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States) regarding their perspectives on signed language interpreters. Using a semi-structured survey questionnaire, seven interpreting researchers interviewed two Deaf leaders each in their home countries. Following transcription of the data, the researchers conducted a thematic analysis of the comments. Four shared themes emerged in the data, as follows: (a) variable level of confidence in interpreting direction, (b) criteria for selecting interpreters, (c) judging the competence of interpreters, and (d) strategies for working with interpreters. The results suggest that Deaf leaders share similar, but not identical, perspectives about working with interpreters, despite differing conditions that hold regarding how interpreting services are provided in their respective countries. When compared to prior studies of Deaf leaders’ perspectives of interpreters, these data indicate some positive trends in Deaf leaders’ experience with interpreters; however, results also point to a need for further work in creating an atmosphere of trust, enhancing interpreters’ language fluency, and developing mutual collaboration between Deaf leaders and signed language interpreters. De url van de uitgeversversie van het artikel is: http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/084.2017.18.1.5
DOCUMENT
In this chapter we discuss the Surinam Deaf community as a linguistic minority with a language of their own: an as yet unnamed sigh language. This language is sometimes called Surinam Sign Language bu could easily also be named Paramaribo Sign Lanaguage or even Kennedy School Sign Language. Ther ehas been no research on this sign variety, so its structure and possible varieties are unknown. Here, we will refer to this language as the local sign variety,
MULTIFILE
Posterpresentatie op Conferentie. Introduction: Classifiers are handshapes (sometimes combined with a specific orientation) that, when combined with the other parameters of movement and location form a ‘verb of motion or location’. There is a limited body of research available on the acquisition of classifiers by children. The available studies have focused on deaf children of deaf (DOD) parents, who are native signers. Results show that classifiers emerge at 3 years and approach an adult like level at the age of 9 (Beal Alvarez & Easterbrooks, 2013). This small study was set out to investigate the production of classifiers in DOH children who acquire Sign Language of the Netherlands. Our expectation was that DOH children produce classifiers, but fail to use them correctly in all instances due to lack of pragmatic control (Slobin et al., 2003). Method: Four children (two girls, two boys) were recruited at a school for the Deaf in The Netherlands (5;10 – 6;8 years). All children were deaf or severely hearing-impaired from birth. Children used (sign supported) Dutch at home and sign language at school and had approximately three years of exposure to sign language. Narratives (Frog-story) were recorded. The recordings were transcribed and analyzed using ELAN-software. Analysis focused on type of classifier (entity and handling) and accuracy in production. Results: The children produced 22 classifiers in total, 20 entity classifiers and 2 handling classifiers. Ten percent of the entity classifiers was incorrect; the handshape to express the entity did not match the handshape frequently selected for that entity. Conclusion: DOH children produce classifiers after three years of exposure to sign language. Errors in classifier production involved errors in handshape selection. This compares to type of errors frequently found for DOD children. Results will be discussed in relation to the iconic and gestural properties of classifiers (Cormier et al., 2012). References: Beal-Alvarez, J.S. & Easterbrooks, S.R. (2013). Increasing children’s ASL classifier production: A multicomponent intervention. American Annals of the Deaf, 158, 311 – 333. Cormier, K., Quinto-Pozos, D., Sevcikova, Z., Schembri, A. (2012). Lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation processes in sign languages: Comparing depicting constructions and viewpoint gestures. Language & Communication, 32, 329 – 348. Slobin, D., Hoiting, N., Kuntze, K., Lindert, R., Weinberg, A. Pyers, J., Anthony, M., Biederman, Y., Thumann, H. (2003). A cognitive/functional perspective on the acquisition of ‘classifiers’. In: Emmorey, K. (Ed.). Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ. Pp 297 – 310.
DOCUMENT
We present a number of methodological recommendations concerning the online evaluation of avatars for text-to-sign translation, focusing on the structure, format and length of the questionnaire, as well as methods for eliciting and faithfully transcribing responses.
LINK
