Deaf around the World is a compendium of work by scholars and activists on the creation, context, and form of sign languages, and on the social issues and civil rights of Deaf communities. Renowned contributors such as James Woodward, Yerker Andersson, and Paddy Ladd offer new histories and overviews of major topics. Each chapter is followed by a response from a pre-eminent thinker in the field. The volume includes studies of sign languages and Deaf communities in Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Myanmar, Nicaragua, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States.

This book is one of the first references of linguistic research of sign languages in East Asia (including China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong). The book includes the basic descriptions of aspects of Chinese (Shanghai, Tianjin) sign language, Hong Kong Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language, Korean Sign Language, Taiwanese Sign Language, and Tibetan Sign Language. Table of contents Introduction Kazumi Matsuoka, Onno Crasborn and Marie Coppola Part 1: Manuals: Numerals, classifiers, modal verbs Historical relationships between numeral signs in Japanese Sign Language, South Korean Sign Language and Taiwan Sign Language Keiko Sagara Phonological processes in complex word formation in Shanghai Sign Language,Shengyun Gu Classifiers and gender in Korean Sign Language Ki-Hyun Nam and Kang-Suk Byu Causative alternation in Tianjin Sign Language Jia He and Gladys Tan Epistemic modal verbs and negation in Japanese Sign Language Kazumi Matsuoka, Uiko Yano and Kazumi Maegawa Part 2: Non-manuals and space The Korean Sign Language (KSL) corpus and its first application on a study about mouth actions Sung-Eun Hong, Seong Ok Won, Hyunhwa Lee, Kang-Suk Byun and Eun-Young Lee Negative polar questions in Hong Kong Sign Language Felix Sze and Helen Le Analyzing head nod expressions by L2 learners of Japanese Sign Language: A comparison with native Japanese Sign Language signers Natsuko Shimotan Composite utterances in Taiwan Sign Language Shiou-fen Su Time and timelines in Tibetan Sign Language (TSL) interactions in Lhasa Theresia Hofer

This book is about the social condition of Deaf people, told through a Deaf woman's autobiography and a series of essays investigating how hearing societies relate to Deaf people. Michel Foucault described the powerful one as the beholder who is not seen. This is why a Deaf woman's perspective is important: Minorities that we don't even suspect we have power over observe us in turn. Majorities exert power over minorities by influencing the environment and institutions that simplify or hinder lives: language, mindsets, representations, norms, the use of professional power. Based on data collected by Eurostat, this volume provides the first discussion of statistics on the condition of Deaf people in a series of European countries, concerning education, labor, gender. This creates a new opportunity to discuss inequalities on the basis of data. The case studies in this volume reconstruct untold moments of great advancement in Deaf history, successful didactics supporting bilingualism, the reasons why Deaf empowerment for and by Deaf people does and does not succeed. A work of empowerment is effective if it acts on a double level: the community to be empowered and society at large, resulting in a transformation of society as a whole. This book provides instruments to work towards such a transformation.

Due to applications in recent electronic appliances and pervasive devices, Automated Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) is of particular interest nowadays. HGR developments have come a long way from the traditional Sign Language Recognition (SLR) systems to innovations such as wearable sensor based electronic devices. A large amount of research on HGR is still on the way, both from the industry and academia, that is working towards introducing more practical gesture recognition systems and associated algorithms. This book highlights state-of-the-art practices in the direction of HGR research. It is organized into five coherent heads: HGR introduction, modalities, and challenges, practical hand segmentation schemes capable of working under cluttered backgrounds, gesture recognition schemes targeting different acquisition mechanisms, solutions sticking to different, practiced methodologies, and conclusions from the HGR works witnessed so far and future options. The book is ideal for undergraduates, researchers at all levels, and the developer community as it provides a basis of information about HGR, as well as new and in-depth research in the field.

This book is the first longitudinal study that addresses language policy and planning in the context of a major international sporting event and examines the ideological, political, social, cultural, and economic effects of such context-specific policy initiatives on contemporary China. The book has important reference value for future research on language management at the supernational level and language services for linguistically complex events. At the same time, it presents some broader implications for current and future language policy makers, language educators and learners, particularly from non-English speaking backgrounds. Foreword by Ingrid Piller

Is the relation between gestures and language conventionalized? Is it possible to investigate the backgrounds of the users by means of these gestures? This book offers an in-depth analysis and description of five recurrent gestures used by Hausa speakers from northern Nigeria, examined from a cross-cultural perspective. The method based on studying naturalistic data available online (sermons, interviews and talk shows) can be applied to other languages with no speech corpora. Particular attention is paid to cultural practices and routinized behavior that affect both the form of a gesture and its meaning. Everyday activities, such as greetings and religious rituals, as well as social hierarchy and gender differences are reflected in gestures. The results show that gestures and language reveal the shared cultural background of the speakers and reflect identical cognitive processes.

Sign languages are non-written languages. Given that the use of digital media and video recordings in documenting sign languages started only some 30 years ago, the life stories of Deaf elderly signers born in the 1930s-1940s have - except for a few scattered fragments in film - not been documented and are therefore under serious threat of being lost. The chapters compiled in this volume document important aspects of past and present experiences of elderly Deaf signers across Europe, as well as in Israel and the United States. Issues addressed include (i) historical events and how they were experienced by Deaf people, (ii) issues of identity and independence, (iii) aspects of language change, (iv) experiences of suppression and discrimination. The stories shared by elderly signers reveal intriguing, yet hidden, aspects of Deaf life. On the negative side, these include experiences of the Deaf in Nazi Germany and occupied countries and harsh practices in educational settings, to name a few. On the positive side, there are stories of resilience and vivid memories of school years and social and professional life. In this way, the volume contributes in a significant way to the preservation of the cultural and linguistic heritage of Deaf communities and sheds light on lesser known aspects against an otherwise familiar background. This publication has been made possible within the SIGN-HUB project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The first reference book written for the sight-impaired student and those who serve their needs, "A Field Guide for the Sight-Impaired Reader" explains how to locate, obtain, and integrate all forms of aid to construct a world of reading equal to that of the fully sighted reader. It profiles the major blind service organizations; explores specialized formats such as Braille, large print, and electronic texts; and shows what technology readers require and where to find it. It provides comprehensive lists of audio and large print publishers, a state-by-state listing of resource agencies for the blind, and valuable internet resources to assist students and their teachers and librarians in obtaining the texts they need to succeed in both academic and pleasure reading.

Beginning with thorough coverage of the national organizations in place for visually handicapped readers and how they can assist both students and librarians, "A Field Guide for the Sight-Impaired Reader" outlines the types of technology available to readers and the companies that manufacture it. Available software, braille resources, large print resources, and internet web sites are all discussed in detail, with contact information. Also included are reading strategies for a variety of academic subject areas, a detailed listing of state resources with addresses, phone numbers, and web sites, an exhaustive list of audio publishers, and a list of books compiled from recommended reading lists such as the American Library Association's Outstanding Books for the College Bound. A discussion of the Americans with Disabilities Act and its impact on libraries is provided, as well as funding sources for librarians who want to provide more materials and technology for their sight-impaired patrons than their budgets might allow. With the encouragement and resources provided here, sight-impaired students who felt the world of reading was closed off to them can now create a reading life as rich as that of any fully sighted student.

This book looks at how the human brain got the capacity for language and how language then evolved. Its four parts are concerned with different views on the emergence of language, with what language is, how it evolved in the human brain, and finally how this process led to the properties of language. Part I considers the main approaches to the subject and how far language evolved culturally or genetically. Part II argues that language is a system of signs and considers how these elements first came together in the brain. Part III examines the evidence for brain mechanisms to allow the formation of signs. Part IV shows how the book's explanation of language origins and evolution is not only consistent with the complex properties of languages but provides the basis for a theory of syntax that offers insights into the learnability of language and to the nature of constructions that have defied decades of linguistic analysis, including including subject-verb inversion in questions, existential constructions, and long-distance dependencies. Denis Bouchard's outstandingly original account will interest linguists of all persuasions as well as cognitive scientists and others interested in the evolution of language.

'Should be required reading for all beginners ... A very useful book' British Deaf News 'Great to help further understanding of the language of deaf people' The Teacher This new cover edition of Sign Language Companion offers a clear introduction to British Sign Language, featuring over 400 illustrations of common signs. Helpfully formatted in groups of linked ideas, it allows the development of real conversations immediately. British Sign Language (BSL) is Britain's fourth most popular language, and for the Deaf community it is the most fluent means of communication - and the most direct way for hearing people to interact with the deaf. Sign Language Companion is for all BSL students, and covers topics including: - Getting to know you - Sharing ideas and interests - Feelings and building relationships - Food and drink With a new preface and updated resources, Sign Language Companion is an essential classic that has stood the test of time - an invaluable reference for all learners of BSL of any age.

Although a number of edited collections deal with either the languages of the world or the languages of particular regions or genetic families, only a few cover sign languages or even include a substantial amount of information on them. This handbook provides information on some 38 sign languages, including basic facts about each of the languages, structural aspects, history and culture of the Deaf communities, and history of research. This information will be of interest not just to general audiences, including those who are deaf, but also to linguists and students of linguistics. By providing information on sign languages in a manner accessible to a less specialist audience, this volume fills an important gap in the literature.

This book introduces a new topic to applied linguistics: the significance of the TESOL teacher's background as a learner and user of additional languages. The development of the global TESOL profession as a largely English-only enterprise has led to the accepted view that, as long as the teacher has English proficiency, then her or his other languages are irrelevant. The book questions this view. Learners are in the process of becoming plurilingual, and this book argues that they are best served by a teacher who has experience of plurilingualism. The book proposes a new way of looking at teacher linguistic identity by examining in detail the rich language biographies of teachers: of growing up with two or more languages; of learning languages through schooling or as an adult, of migrating to another linguaculture, of living in a plurilingual family and many more. The book examines the history of language-in-education policy which has led to the development of the TESOL profession in Australia and elsewhere as a monolingual enterprise. It shows that teachers' language backgrounds have been ignored in teacher selection, teacher training and ongoing professional development. The author draws on literature in teacher cognition, bilingualism studies, intercultural competence, bilingual lifewriting and linguistic identity to argue that languages play a key part in the development of teachers' professional beliefs, identity, language awareness and language learning awareness. Drawing on three studies involving 115 teachers from Australia and seven other countries, the author demonstrates conclusively that large numbers of teachers do have plurilingual experiences; that these experiences are ignored in the profession, but that they have powerful effects on the formation of beliefs about language learning and teaching which underpin good practice. Those teachers who identify as monolingual almost invariably have some language learning experience, but it was low-level, short-lived and unsuccessful. How does the experience of successful or unsuccessful language learning and language use affect one's identity, beliefs and practice as an English language teacher? What kinds of experience are most beneficial? These concepts and findings have implications for teacher language education, teacher professional development and the current calls for increased plurilingual practices in the TESOL classroom.

In Ten Lectures on Cognitive Linguistics and the Unification of Spoken and Signed Languages Sherman Wilcox suggests that rather than abstracting away from the material substance of language, linguists can discover the deep connections between signed and spoken languages by taking an embodied view. This embodied solution reveals the patterns and principles that unite languages across modalities. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Wilcox explores such issues as the how to apply cognitive grammar to the study of signed languages, the pervasive conceptual iconicity present throughout the lexicon and grammar of signed languages, the relation of language and gesture, the grammaticization of signs, the significance of motion for understanding language as a dynamic system, and the integration of cognitive neuroscience and cognitive linguistics.

This book examines the concept of meaning and our general understanding of reality in a legal and philosophical context. Starting from the premise that meaning is a matter of linguistic and other forms of articulation, it considers the inherent philosophical consequences. Part I presents Klages', Derrida's, Von Hofmannsthal's and Wittgenstein's explorations of silence as a source of articulation and meaning. Debates about 20th century psychologism gave the attitude concept a pivotal role; it illustrates the importance of the discovery that a word is globally qualified as 'the basic unit of language'. This is mirrored in the fact that we understand reality as a matter of particles and thus interpret the real as a component of an all-embracing 'particle story'. Each chapter of the book focuses on an aspect of legal semiotics related to the chapter's theme: for instance on the meaning of a Judge's 'Saying for Law', on law students training in varying attitudes or on the ties between law and language. Part II of the book illustrates our general understanding of reality as a matter of particles and partitioning, and examines texts that prove that particle thinking is basic for our meaning concept. It shows that physics, quantum theory, holism, and modern brain research focusing on human linguistic capabilities, confirm their ties to the particle story. In contrast, the book concludes that partitions and particles are neither a fact in the history of the cosmos nor a determinant of knowledge and the sciences, and that meaning is a process: a constellation rather than a fixation. This is manifest once one understands meaning as the result of continuously changing attitudes, which create our narratives on cosmos and creation. The book proposes a new key for meaning: a linguistic occurrence anchored in dimensions of human narrativity.

This book defines the notion of applied sign linguistics by drawing on data from projects that have explored sign language in action in various domains. The book gives professionals working with sign languages, signed language teachers and students, research students and their supervisors, authoritative access to current ideas and practice.

This study had a research purpose and a pedagogical purpose. Research disclosed the dynamic, changing nature of (learner-internal and learner-external) variables that influence strategic competence for developing EFL/ESL writers. This competence was found necessary for international graduate students to move from writer-centered learning to reader-centered communication. The research instruments proved to be practical tools for guiding learners' processes of learning and writing a scholarly paper or article and avoiding plagiarism. The implication for teachers and program administrators is a systematic approach for developing self-regulation (control) in EFL/ESL writing. The first part of the book reports on the mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) research. The second part gives an in-depth report of the 6 cases used in the research. The third part presents tools for systematically developing self-regulation in scholarly (and academic) writing with (a) student and teacher checklists for formative assessment that are valid and reliable; and (b) a model syllabus for teachers that can be adapted across disciplines and genres. These tools deal with learning strategies and their applications to writing and writing instruction.

Bringing together sign language linguistics and the semantics-pragmatics interface, this book focuses on the use of signing space in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). On the basis of small-scale corpus data, it provides an exhaustive description of referential devices dependent on space. The book provides insight into the study of meaning in the visual-spatial modality and into our understanding of the discourse behavior of spatial locations.

This pioneering work on Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) explores the linguistic and social factors that lie behind variation in the grammatical domains of negation and completion. Using a corpus of spontaneous data from signers in the cities of Solo and Makassar, Palfreyman applies an innovative blend of methods from sign language typology and Variationist Sociolinguistics, with findings that have important implications for our understanding of grammaticalisation in sign languages. The book will be of interest to linguists and sociolinguists, including those without prior experience of sign language research, and to all who are curious about the history of Indonesia's urban sign community. Nick Palfreyman is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS), University of Central Lancashire.