Sign Languages Commons^™

Finding Their Fit: An Exploratory Study Of Interpreters’ Perceptions Of Their Membership In The Deaf Community, Cami J. Miner

Journal of Interpretation

In the U.S., Deaf individuals who use a signed language as their preferred and dominant means of communication are considered a distinct linguistic and cultural group known as the Deaf community. Sign language interpreters, particularly non-native signers who are leaning ASL, are frequently encouraged to associate with the Deaf community as part of their language acquisition process. However, interpreters who are not deaf or native signers, especially students, often experience tension as they interact with the Deaf community. The literature is divided on whether hearing interpreters who learn ASL later in life, even those who are arguably bilingual and bicultural, …

Gendered Translations: Working From Asl Into English, Campbell Mcdermid, Brianna Bricker, Andrea Shealy, Abigail Copen

Journal of Interpretation

American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-spatial language that differs from spoken language, such as English. One way is in the use and characteristics of pronouns (Meier, 1990). Pronouns in ASL, for example, are created by pointing to objects or locations in space (written in English here as POINT), and do not have a gender assigned to them as they do in English (he, she, him, her). So, where it is not specified in ASL, interpreters must decide how to interpret pronouns into English. Limited research has been done on this topic (Quinto-Pozos et al., 2015), and so a study …

Exploring Tactile Art-Making With Deafblind Students And Their Families: An Opportunity For Creative Play, Alice Rodgers

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The impact of a deafblind diagnosis on an individual’s mental health and the well-being of the family involved can be profound. However, current research and available literature for the mental health treatment and therapy practices of deafblind persons and their families is limited (Kyzar et al., 2016; “WFDB Global Report 2018,” n.d.). This thesis used the Leeds Family Psychology and Therapy Service principles (Leeds FPTS) and the Expressive Therapies Continuum with established deafblind teaching strategies to facilitate an original arts-based community project entitled: “Things We Like.” This project provided an opportunity for deafblind students (ages three to 22) and their …

Experiences Of Interpreters And Deaf Consumers In Mental Health Support Groups, Jordana Avital

Master of Arts in Interpreting Studies and Communication Equity Thesis or Action Research Project

There is currently a need for further research in the interpreting field for working in support group settings for mental health and addiction recovery. This gap in the research leaves many unanswered questions of how best to provide services to deaf consumers in these settings. By gathering information on the experiences of both interpreters and deaf consumers who have been in support groups, this research will identify issues that may need to be addressed in order to improve the interpretation process. This research will be the groundwork for future research to identify effective training and skill development that is needed …

An Exploration Of Perspectives: An Institutional Ethnography Of The Interpreting Policy At St. Catherine University, Josephine E. Heyl

Master of Arts in Interpreting Studies and Communication Equity Thesis or Action Research Project

Research of higher education has found that disabled faculty and students are often categorized by their disability, while other aspects of their identity are forgotten, misunderstood, and invalidated. When considering policy making in higher education, these individuals are infrequently invited to conversations of policy making and systemic decision making. With a feminist theoretical framework, this study examines the interpreting policy at St. Catherine University through the lens of stakeholder experience and perspective. Data was collected from participants through a survey and virtual interviews. Knowledge was found as an underlying connection between the five narrative themes: familiarity with interpreting policy, discrepancies …

Captions For Covid? Hearing Accessibility In Virtual "Zoom" Theatre, Gianna Schuetz

Honors Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic shut the doors of theatres across the United States and the rest of the world. Live theatre came to a sudden halt as gatherings of people served as significant health risks. As live theatre performances became nearly obsolete, many theatre organizations were forced to creatively adapt to move their programming to a virtual format. Presenting theatre in a virtual format brings many challenges; however, it also brings opportunities for increased accessibility and access, particularly for individuals who are hard of hearing.

The following thesis explores hearing accessibility measures taken by theatre companies as they ventured into virtual …

Timing Comparisons Across American Sign Language And English, Jillian Bartlett

Thinking Matters Symposium

American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English differ in modalities, but prosody can be found in both. Previous studies show that the Closure Positive Shift (CPS) (an established component of an Event-Related Potential [ERP]) occurs in response to acoustic stimuli indicative of prosodic phrasing (Pannekamp et al., 2005; Steinhauer et al., 1999). Prosodic processing in relation to these two modalities was studied using EEG. Sixteen Deaf ASL speakers and 34 hearing English speakers participated in the study by watching video or listening to audio recordings of stimuli while a portable electroencephalogram, or EEG (a device that detects abnormalities in brain …

An Interactive Visual Database For American Sign Language Reveals How Signs Are Organized In The Mind, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Ariel Goldberg, Karen Emmory, Naomi Caselli

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

"We are four researchers who study psycholinguistics, linguistics, neuroscience and deaf education. Our team of deaf and hearing scientists worked with a group of software engineers to create the ASL-LEX database that anyone can use for free. We cataloged information on nearly 3,000 signs and built a visual, searchable and interactive database that allows scientists and linguists to work with ASL in entirely new ways."

The Asl-Lex 2.0 Project: A Database Of Lexical And Phonological Properties For 2,723 Signs In American Sign Language, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Ariel M. Cohen-Goldberg, Karen Emmory

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency (“guessability”) ratings (from non-signers), sign and videoclip durations, lexical class, and more. We document the steps used to create ASL-LEX 2.0 and describe the distributional characteristics for sign properties across the lexicon and examine the relationships among lexical and phonological properties of signs. Correlation …

Coda, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of CODA (2021), directed by Siân Heder.

Forward: Teanga, 11(Special Issue 11), Pp. Iii-Xiii, Irene Murtagh, Lorraine Leeson

Articles

Welcome to this special issue of TEANGA, which presents a selection of papers on the linguistics and applied linguistics of Irish Sign Language. This publication is timely, coming in the academic year that celebrates the nineteenth anniversary of the establishment of the Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College Dublin (est. 2001), and the year in which when Irish Sign Language Act (2017) is due to formally commence

Sign Language And Language Development: A Meta-Analysis, Yasmin Sanchez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study takes a look at baby signing and its effect on caregiver responsiveness, considering how vital caregiver responsiveness is when it comes to language development. A meta-analytic review that quantitatively combines data was conducted to estimate the effect size between baby signs and caregiver responsiveness. There were no restrictions on geography or culture in which studies were conducted. However, the time period of publication was limited from 2009 to 2020 in an attempt to examine the most recent research possible. The following search terms were used: baby signing, gestures, caregiver responsiveness, caregiver interactions, and caregiver. For a study to …

Zoomprov. Improvisation Exercises For Language Learning In Online Classes With Zoom Or Similar Tech For Beginning And Intermediate Learners And Beyond, Mona Eikel-Pohen

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

The improv language exercises in this compilation are chosen from the experience I gathered 20 years ago, but also from the amazing work of Lauren Esposito and Scranton Improv & Comedy that have been more real than anything else to me this past summer, and from Jim Ansaldo, who taught me how to structure improv exercises online. They are organized by level, referring to the Common European Framework of References for Languages. That means, A1 exercises can be conducted at the beginners level but also at all other higher levels, but B2 exercises should not be imposed upon beginners or …

Exploring Accessibility And Social Inclusion For Children With Hearing Impairments In Residential Camps Through The Occupational Therapy Lens, Tiffany Coles

Student Capstone Papers

Children are encouraged to engage in various play, leisure, and social participation activities to enhance the development of life skills, independence, and social skills. A common leisure and social participation activity for children aged 6 to 18-years-old is to attend residential camp. Residential camps provide children a structured opportunity to engage in leisure activities while learning to become independent and self-confident when socializing and making new friends. Attending camp can be a fun and engaging environment to help accelerate growth in key developmental outcomes, such as positive identity, social skills, physical skills, positive values, and spirituality.

Within the residential camp …

American Sign Language Interpreting For D/Deaf Individuals With Disabilities: A Qualitative Study And Practical Guide, Emily Mason

Senior Honors Theses

American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting for d/Deaf individuals with disabilities (DWD) is a complex task, and one which lacks an adequate research-base to inform best practices. Using the foundation of existing literature on closely related topics such as the field of ASL interpreting, educational interpreting, education of DWD individuals, and research about specific disabilities occurring with d/Deafness, I compiled a literature review and created a theoretical conceptual framework concerning this topic. In further investigation of this subject, I also conducted a qualitative study through online questionnaires sent out by email to ASL interpreters located through snowball sampling. The data collected …

Social Isolation, Anxiety, And Stress Among Vrs/Vri Sign Language Interpreters During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kolten Schnack

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in increased Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) and increased remote working for interpreters who work in Video Relay Services (VRS) as many have received temporary permission to work from home rather than a central call center. While certain occupational health risks such as stress and burnout for sign language interpreters who work in VRS have been studied, no one has studied general mental health among VRS sign language interpreters under the current pandemic (Dean et al., 2010; Schwenke, 2015; Wessling & Shaw, 2014). This study aimed to collect data on sign language interpreters’ experiences of social …

Interview With Samoan-English Specialist Mental Health Interpreter Hoy Neng Wong Soon, Jo Anna Burn, Hoy Neng Wong Soon

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This interview was conducted with Hoy Neng Wong Soon, a specialist mental health Samoan-language interpreter from Aotearoa New Zealand³ . Hoy Neng combines her work as a research project manager with the Pacific Islands Families Study with interpreting and translating and also works as a health interpreter and translator educator. Her experiences offer interpreters and educators an insight into mental health settings and into the very demanding area of forensic psychiatry. She is based in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Bridging Divides In The Interpreting Profession: Response To Gile And Napier (2020), Hilde Fiva Buzungu, Jessica P. B. Hansen

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This commentary continues the discussion raised by Daniel Gile and Jemina Napier (2020) and aims to examine further the interconnectedness of signed and spoken language interpreting. Whereas Gile and Napier have drawn attention to some dimensions of complexity, we suggest that there are more to be explored. Focusing on the situated nature of interpreting, and including a broader range of practices of spoken language interpreting, we argue that complexities in interpreting are not inherently more present in signed language interpreting than in spoken language interpreting, and that there are situated and local contexts that must be taken more fully into …

Driving Without Directions? Modifying Assignments For Deaf Students In An Interpreter Education Class, Margie English, Brenda S. Nicodemus, Danielle Hunt

International Journal of Interpreter Education

In the U.S. and other countries, deaf interpreters are increasingly providing professional interpreting and translation services between one or more languages. One outcome of this trend is that deaf individuals are enrolling in educational degree programs in pursuit of training and credentials for signed language interpreters. Interpreter educators whose experience may have only been with teaching non-deaf students are now seeking to create meaningful learning experiences for their deaf students. In this article, we discuss two course assignments modified for deaf students who were enrolled in a beginning translation course at Gallaudet University and we provide the students’ perspectives about …

Repair Strategies In Consecutive Interpreting: Comparing Professional Interpreters And Interpreting Trainees, Fang Tang

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This empirical study investigates features of interpreters’ use of repair strategies in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting. The data were collected from a consecutive interpreting experiment in which nine professional interpreters and nine interpreting trainees (all native speakers of Chinese with English as their B language) were invited to interpret an authentic speech from Chinese into English. A parallel bilingual corpus was built comprising transcripts of the speech and the interpreting output. All the repair strategies therein were coded for analysis. Follow-up interviews were conducted to elicit interpreters’ recall of their adoption of such strategies. Results show that in general, professional interpreters …