Sign Languages Commons^™

Interview With A Scholar: In Conversation With Risa Shaw, Debra Russell, Risa Shaw

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This open forum article consists of an interview with Risa Shaw, a signed language interpreter educator, in which she reviews her doctoral research. Her study examined narratives and retellings, in both English and American Sign Language, of disclosures to family members of sexual assault. The findings reveal the importance of context in creating meaning and in shaping narrative structure in discourse. In addition, the work highlights the manner in which interpreters must prepare for the work in order to effectively interpret in the diverse settings where narratives are retold. This interdisciplinary study has implications for interpreters and interpreter educators, across …

Dissertation Abstracts, Brenda Nicodemus, Maria Cristina Pires Pereira, Carolyn Ball

International Journal of Interpreter Education

No abstract provided.

Place Names In Israeli Sign Language, Bettina Revilla

Theses and Dissertations

One of the obstacles in translating the Hebrew Scriptures into sign language is the lack of signs for Biblical places in most sign languages of the world. What solutions are there? One possibility is to borrow existing signs for Biblical places from another sign language, particularly from Israeli Sign Language, since Israeli Deaf already have signs for the places where they live.

There is a trend towards borrowing foreign place name signs (toponyms), especially when a language does not have a sign. This research provides a corpus of Israeli Sign Language (ISL) toponyms for ninety-two place names, documenting in photos …

Luciano Bianciardi’S Aprire Il Fuoco: On The Function Of Literature In Society, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This is the first article to assess the importance of Luciano Bianciardi’s last novel, Aprire il fuoco [Open Fire!](1969), a work often overlooked, that offers crucial insights into Bianciardi’s commitments to social causes. A so-called “irregular” of 20th-century Italian literary panorama, Luciano Bianciardi (1922-1971) in his Aprire il fuoco discusses his idea of literature as an activity that must aim at assuming the role of ethical guide in societies. In my article, I gloss the often obscure historical and literary references of the novel, and provide a critical assessment of its impact.

Using Sign Language With Hearing Preschool Children, Jamie E. Johnson

Graduate Research Papers

The purposed of this review is to examine the effects of using American Sign Language (ASL) with hearing preschool children without disabilities. The research examined the effects on cognitive skills, fine motor skills, IQ, student behavior, and memory when American Sign Language is implemented into a preschool classroom. A variety of sources were examined and synthesized to provide the reader with informational data and recommendations.

Hidden Sentiments, Unfinished Project: Pirandello’S Film La Nuova Colonia, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This article investigates the notion of the unfinished work. In Pirandello studies the word unfinished holds particular importance. Luigi Pirandello's last, and one of his major works, I giganti della montagna [The Mountain Giants] was not completed. The many years devoted to its making weaken the assumption that Pirandello was not capable of completing it in favor of his decision not to complete his work. I considered the overlapping of the writing of I giganti della montagna and of the attempts to produce the film La nuova colonia [The New Colony] an important, and insofar unnoticed, key element for understanding …

Sign To Learn : Sign Language As A Teaching Tool In Hearing Classrooms, Angela M. Schneden

Graduate Research Papers

This project examines using sign language as a multisensory learning tool in hearing classrooms. Included is a brief history of sign language in the United States as well as a review of different types of sign language. This project provides a rationale for incorporating sign language into the hearing classroom by examining the relationship between sign and gains in literacy achievement. The primary goal of using sign language in the classroom is for students to become better readers, writers, and spellers. This will be accomplished by teaching students to fingerspell and sign sight words. Research detailing use of sign in …

Un Nuovo Dato Per La Cronologia Della Versione Cinematografica Della Nuova Colonia Di Luigi Pirandello, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) wrote numerous film-treatments inspired by his short-stories and plays that were not completed as films. Among the never completed films there is La Nuova Colonia. The history of the film-project La Nuova Colonia [The New Colony] is important for the further understanding of Pirandello’s poetics. Nestled in the plot of Pirandello’s novel Suo marito [Her Husband], La Nuova Colonia took on independent life in 1926 as the play of the same name that premiered in Rome in March 1928. The two dates indicated for the play are not the chronological limits for the La Nuova Colonia …

Using Space To Describe Space: American Sign Language And The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Cindee Calton

Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

My study sought to combine two topics that have recently generated much interest among anthropologists. One of these topics is American Sign Language, the other is linguistic relativity. Although both topics have been a part of the literature for some time, neither has been studied extensively until the recent past. Both present exciting new horizons for understanding culture, particularly language and culture.

The first of these two topics is the study of American Sign Language. The reason for its previous absence from the literature has to do with unfortunate prejudice which, for a long time, kept ASL from being recognized …

Stuck On The Tip Of My Thumb: Stuttering In American Sign Language, Geoffrey Whitebread

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

This thesis aims to stimulate research on articulation disorders in American Sign Language. It discusses the controversy surrounding a clinical definition of stuttering, reviews the symptoms of stuttering in spoken languages, and examines theories of the etiology of stuttering. Ten well-connected individuals in the Deaf community were interviewed and presented a list of possible symptoms of stuttering in American Sign Language (ASL). (As a preliminary investigation, this study did not attempt to directly observe any stuttering in ASL.) Participants responded with how they thought symptoms might look in ASL and whether they had seen examples in real life. A refined …

Piero Chiara E La Tradizione, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Piero Chiara (Luino 1913- Varese 1986) wrote many novels and short stories that immediately met great public success. Critics devoted mixed attention to him but his works deserve a new critical assessment to analyze the rich and sophisticated web of cultural and literary references that permeate them. Through readings of Il piatto piange, “L’uovo al cianuro” and other novels and short stories, this paper analyses the complex textual relations Chiara entertains with Pirandello’s Il fu Mattia Pascal. Chiara investigates the themes of identity and the double. His narrative depicts an apparently lighthearted reality that in fact reveals despair. …

Un’Agra Salita. Lettura Di ‘Autostrada Della Cisa’ Di Vittorio Sereni, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Luciano Bianciardi (1922-1971) wants to open a dialogue with his friend Vittorio Sereni (1913-1983) through the pages of his best-selling novel La vita agra (1962). Sereni does not respond immediately, and the approach seems not to have received Sereni’s attention. The analysis of Sereni’s 1981 poem “Autostrada della Cisa” proves that he ultimately decided to reply to his friend’s irreverent, yet congenial, comments, albeit nearly 20 years later. This article underlines the existential crisis expressed by Sereni in his poem, accompanied by his willingness to enter into a dialogue with any reader, despite the nihilistic outcomes he foresees. His efforts …

Active Learning Techniques To Teach Spanish Vocabulary, Sara E. Janssen

Graduate Research Papers

The journal article, "Pictures, John Travolta moves, and Sign Language: Active Learning Techniques to Teach Spanish Vocabulary," discusses the experiences 8th grade Spanish students had while using three instructional practices for learning vocabulary. Active learning strategies are a popular method for educators, especially those at the middle level. Educators can get their students active in learning by doing many different things. Pictures, "silly signs," and sign language were used to engage my students in learning fourteen Spanish vocabulary words.

Three groups of Spanish exploratory classes were the subjects in this study. Each of the three groups received instruction using one …

Owen Wrigley's The Politics Of Deafness: "Gaze" And Identity In The Deaf Community, David J. Kurs

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Kurs analyzes The Politics of Deafness by Owen Wrigley in several ways. His analysis includes looking at Wrigley's hearing status and therefore his "gaze", his perceptions on the Deaf community and Deaf Identity as an outsider, and ultimately discuses if Wrigley's observations are correct.

Asl? Language Foreign Me? Homeborn: Conflicts Between Juror Laws And American Sign Language Interpretation For A Deaf Juror: An Unrecognized Problem, Jean T. Jims

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

American Sign Language is not English, but many deaf Americans use it as their primary language; some their only language. Federal and most state. Statutes which establish juror qualifications have English language requirements. This thesis will explain how those requirements are contradictory when applied to a deaf juror who would require American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation during service as a juror, and propose that it would be in the best interests of the judicial system to recognize those contradictions and address the problem. Legislative history does not offer a clear answer, and the issue is sufficiently in doubt that legislative …

Effectiveness Compared: Asl Interpretation Vs. Transliteration, Sue Livingston, Bonnie Singer, Theodore Abramson

Publications and Research

Two kinds of interpretation are currently used to make the spoken language accessible to deaf students in regular college programs; namely, ASL Interpretation and Transliteration. To test the effectiveness of each kind, 43 students from several colleges of the City University of New York were divided into two groups by their preference for one or the other kind, and the groups divided according to level of education. Matched groups then received a narrative presentation and a lecture presentation, interpreted either one way or the other by experienced certified interpreters, and then answered questions on the material so received. The results …

Euphemisms In American Sign Language, James Drulia

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Although there has been little research in the field of American Sign Language euphemisms, there is some evidence that they exist (Wilbur Proposal n.d.). This research will attempt to shed light on the nature of euphemisms in American Sign Language, define and describe the manual components of euphemisms and describe the non-verbal features of euphemisms such as body movements and facial expressions. It is hypothesized that American Sign Language does have euphemisms and that this semantic device serves a purpose similar to the English euphemism. Note: Abstract pulled from introduction to literature review.

The Tempest In Translation: Shakespeare And American Sign Language, Peter Novak

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Lexical Variation In Mexican Sign Language, J. Albert Bickford

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

An Alternative View Of Education For Deaf Children: Part Ii, Lil Brannon, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

How might deaf children acquire one of the primary goals of education literacy in English? This article suggests that literacy in English as well as knowledge of the English language can be acquired concomitantly through developmental reading and writing activities that reflect principles of first language acquisition if students bring to these activities relatable experiences which they have already linguistically represented. Such activities engage students in reading and writing where content and context support them in their attempts to actively understand and convey meaning in English. The end product of, rather than the prerequisite for, this meaningful reading and writing …

An Alternative View Of Education For Deaf Children: Part I, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

Quigley and Kretschmer (1982) asserted that the primary goal of education for deaf children should be literacy in English. This article presents an alternative view that there be two primary goals: (a) thinking and learning through the development of meaning-making and meaning-sharing capacities and (b) the acquisition of literacy in English. In this article, the first of these goals is viewed as the more fundamental since it facilitates the acquisition of knowledge while it simultaneously serves as the prerequisite for the acquisition of literacy in English. Because neither direct language instruction nor the exclusive use of English in sign will …

Levels Of Development In The Language Of Deaf Children: Asl Grammatical Processes, Signed English Structures, Semantic Features, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

This study describes the spontaneous sign language of six deaf children (6 to 16 years old) of hearing parents, who were exposed to Signed English when after the age of six they first attended a school for the deaf. Samples of their language taken at three times over a 15-month period were searched for processes and structures representative or not representative of Signed English. The nature of their developing semantics was described as the systematic acquisition of features of meaning in signs from selected lexical categories (kinship terms, negation, time expression, wh-questions, descriptive terms, and prepositions/conjunctions).

Processes not representative of …

Increasing Staff Use Of Sign Language, Melanie Hepworth Neville

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effectiveness of two procedures, a visual cue and performance posting, to modify the use of sign language by psychiatric technicians. The visual cue was first introduced alone, then paired with performance posting to encourage staff use of sign language with the developmentally disabled children in their charge. Application of the visual cue alone produced little change in staff sign useage. The visual cue plus performance posting condition increased staff use of sign language during mealtimes. Four weeks of follow-up data indicated that the use of sign language remained at a level well above baseline.

Evaluation Of Blissymbolics As A Means Of Communication For The Deaf-Cerebral Palsy Population, Linda Howells

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The purposes of this study are:

1. To present the deaf-cerebral palsied population with a more functional means of communication.
2. To test the validity of using a non-vocal means of communication, Blissymbolics, when other more traditional methods of teaching communication skills (sign language or verbal communication) have been ineffective.

Blissymbolics has been found to be an effective means of communication with cerebral palsy children who are unable to develop verbal communication skills. However, there is no research in the use of Blissymbolics with the deaf-cerebral palsy population.

The traditional means of communication used with the nonspeaking deaf person (manual sign language) …

Sign-Language, A Sister Of St. Joseph, Deaf Mute Institute

DCA Bookshelf

A dictionary of sign language used in America. The volume contains 76 typewritten leaves and was prepared by a Sister of St. Joseph from the Deaf Mute Institute in St. Louis, Missouri. It is believed to have been circulated "for the use solely of the Jesuit Scholastics" circa 1900.

This early manual contains a general vocabulary and instructions for how to sign, including some distinctively Catholic terms.

Additional words appearing on title page: Ephphetha, "Be Thou Opened"