Introduces American Sign Language and emphasized how its structure differs from English. Includes ASL sentences, sign games, poetry, and music.

Now this wonderful, seasonal poem can be enjoyed in a new way by both hearing and deaf children. Accompanying the complete verses and full-color illustrations, line drawings show this holiday favorite in Signed English, the system that uses American Sign Language signs in English word order. In this exciting new rendition, children will dream of sugarplums while also learning how to form signs for them. The Night Before Christmas Told in Signed English uses both rhyme and signing to help children practice their vocabulary and learn English grammar. Students, parents, and teachers will enjoy the fun, educational way in which this holiday classic entertains at the same time that it teaches.

The Signing Family shows parents how to create a set of goals for signing centered around the needs of their deaf child, then describes in even-handed terms the major signing options available: American Sign Language, Signed English, Signing Exact English, and Contact Sign. Parents will learn how each of these signing methods originated and, in the case of English signing systems, why they were created and what they are meant to impart to deaf children. Parents will also learn their legal rights in the education of their child and how to work with schools to provide their sign preference in the child's classroom. Armed with all of this thorough information, parents can determine how each type of signing maps onto their goals for themselves and their child, both within the family and in the educational system.

In five compelling chapters, this volume elucidates several key factors of the signed languages used in select international Deaf communities. Kristin Mulrooney studies ASL (American Sign Language) users to delve into the reasons behind the perceived differences in how men and women fingerspell. Bruce Sofinski assesses the current state of transliteration from spoken English to manually coded English, disclosing that competent transliterators do not necessarily produce the desired word-for-sign exchange. In the third chapter Paul Dudis comments upon a remarkable aspect of discourse in ASL-grounded blends. He discusses how signers map particular concepts onto their hands and bodies, which allows them to enrich their narrative strategies. By observing meetings of deaf and nonsigning hearing people in the Flemish Deaf community, Mieke Van Herreweghe determines whether interpreters' turn-taking practices allow for equal participation. The final chapter features a respected team of Spanish researchers led by Esperanza Morales-Lopez who investigate the Catalan/Spanish bilingual community in Barcelona. These scholars measure the influence of recent worldwide, Deaf sociopolitical movements advocating signed languages on deaf groups already familiar with bilingual education. These scholars measure the influence of recent worldwide, Deaf sociopolitical movements advocating signed languages on deaf groups already familiar with bilingual education. Turn-Taking, Fingerspelling, and Contact in Signed Languages takes professional and lay readers alike on a scholarly sojourn of eclectic enrichment for all.

In developed nations around the world, residential schools for deaf students are giving way to the trend of inclusion in regular classrooms. Nonetheless, deaf education continues to lag as the students struggle to communicate. In the Bua School in Thailand, however, 400 residential deaf students ranging in age from 6 to 19 have met with great success in teaching each other Thai Sign Language (TSL) and a world of knowledge once thought to be lost to them. "The Rising of Lotus Flowers: Self-Education by Deaf Children in Thai Boarding Schools" reveals how their institutionalization allowed them to foster a unique incubator of communication and education.
Charles B. Reilly, a teacher of deaf students in Thailand for eight years, collaborated with Nipapon Reilly, a Deaf Thai citizen, to study the students in the Bua School for 14 years, with periodic follow-ups to the present date. They found that the students learned little from their formal instructors, but that they were able to educate each other in time spent away from the classroom. Students who had learned TSL from their deaf parents successfully passed it on to six-year-olds who had virtually no language at all. The Reillys' study uncovers an elaborate hierarchy of education among these students, with each group using games and other activities to teach and bring other classmates up to their level. Named for the much admired aquatic plant that blooms in Thailand's bogs, the Bua School epitomizes the ideal of "The Rise of Lotus Flowers," which also offers analytical evidence of the continuing value of residential schools in deaf education.

"The 12th Volume in the ""Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities Series" The latest entry in the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series continues to mine the rich resources found in signing communities throughout the world. Divided into four parts, this collection features 16 internationally renowned linguistics experts whose absorbing studies reflect an astonishing range of linguistic diversity. The sole essay in Part One: Multilingualism describes historic and contemporary uses of North American Indian Sign Language. Part Two: Language Contact examines language-contact phenomena between Auslan/English interpreters and Deaf people in Australia, and the features of bimodal bilingualism in hearing, Italian, native signers. Part Three: Variation reports the results of a study on location variation in Australian Sign Language. Part Four: Discourse Analysis begins with an analysis of how deaf parents and their hearing toddlers establish and maintain sight triangles when conducting signed conversations. The ensuing chapter explores the use of evaluation within an informal narrative in Langue des Signes Quebecoise. The final chapter explicates how a signer depersonalizes the concept of "self" in an American Sign Language narrative through the use of signs for "he" and "I."

"The Third Volume in the Interpreter Education Series"
The latest addition to the Interpreter Education series expands the tools available to instructors with six new, vital chapters on new curricula and creative teaching methods. Series editor Cynthia B. Roy leads the way by calling for the use of a discourse-oriented curriculum for educating interpreters. In the following chapter, Claudia Angelelli outlines the bottom-line principles for teaching effective health-care interpreting, postulating a model that depends upon the development of skills in six critical areas: cognitive-processing, interpersonal, linguistics, professional, setting-specific, and sociocultural. Risa Shaw, Steven D. Collins, and Melanie Metzger collaborate on describing the process for establishing a bachelor of arts program in interpreting at Gallaudet University distinct from the already existent masters program.
In the fourth chapter, Doug Bowen-Bailey describes how to apply theories of discourse-based interpreter education in specific contexts by producing customized videos. Jemina Napier blends three techniques for instructing signed language interpreters in Australia: synthesizing sign and spoken language interpreting curricula; integrating various interpreting concepts into a theoretical framework; and combining online and face-to-face instruction. Finally, Helen Slatyer delineates the use of an action research methodology to establish a curriculum for teaching ad hoc interpreters of languages used by small population segments in Australia.

Picking up where "Innovative Practices in Teaching Sign Language Interpreters" left off, this new collection presents the best new interpreter teaching techniques proven in action by the eminent contributors assembled here. In the first chapter, Dennis Cokely discusses revising curricula in the new century based upon experiences at Northeastern University. Jeffrey E. Davis delineates how to teach observation techniques to interpreters, while Elizabeth Winston and Christine Monikowski suggest how discourse mapping can be considered the Global Positioning System of translation.
In other chapters, Laurie Swabey proposes ways to handle the challenge of referring expressions for interpreting students, and Melanie Metzger describes how to learn and recognize what interpreters do in interaction. Jemina Napier contributes information on training interpreting students to identify omission potential. Robert G. Lee explains how to make the interpreting process come alive in the classroom. Mieke Van Herreweghe discusses turn-taking and turn-yielding in meetings with Deaf and hearing participants in her contribution. Anna-Lena Nilsson defines "false friends," or how contextually incorrect use of facial expressions with certain signs in Swedish Sign Language can be detrimental influences on interpreters. The final chapter by Kyra Pollitt and Claire Haddon recommends retraining interpreters in the art of telephone interpreting, completing "Advances in Teaching Sign Language Interpreters" as the new authoritative volume in this vital communication profession.

The sudden discovery of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) enthralled scholars worldwide who hoped to witness the evolution of a new language. But controversy erupted regarding the validity of NSL as a genuinely spontaneous language created by young children. Laura Polich's fascinating book recounts her nine-year study of the Deaf community in Nicaragua and her findings about its formation and that of NSL in its wake.
Polich crafted "The Emergence of the Deaf Community in Nicaragua" from her copious research in Nicaragua's National Archives, field observations of deaf pupils in 20 special education schools, polls of the teachers for deaf children about their education and knowledge of deafness, a survey of 225 deaf individuals about their backgrounds and living conditions, and interviews with the oldest members of the National Nicaraguan Association of the Deaf.
Polich found that the use of a "standardized" sign language in Nicaragua did not emerge until there was a community of users meeting on a regular basis, especially beyond childhood. The adoption of NSL did not happen suddenly, but took many years and was fed by multiple influences. She also discovered the process that deaf adolescents used to attain their social agency, which gained them recognition by the larger Nicaraguan hearing society. Her book illustrates tremendous changes during the past 60 years, and the truth in one deaf Nicaraguan's declaration, "With sign language you can learn so much."

"The 13th Volume in the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities Series" This volume collects for the first time various accounts of contact between sign languages throughout the world, presenting an exciting opportunity to further understand the structural and social factors of this linguistic component in Deaf communities. Editor David Quinto-Pozos has divided "Sign Languages in Contact" into four parts, starting with Contact in a Trilingual Setting. The sole essay in this section features a study of Maori signs by Rachel McKee, David McKee, Kirsten Smiler, and Karen Pointon that reveals the construction of indigenous Deaf identity in New Zealand Sign Language. In Part Two: Lexical Comparisons, Jeffrey Davis conducts an historic, linguistic assessment of varieties of North American Indian sign languages. Daisuke Sasaki compares the Japanese Sign Language lexicon with that of Taiwan Sign Language by focusing on signs that share the same meaning and all parameters except for their handshapes. Judith Yoel's chapter takes up the entirety of Part Three: Language Attrition, with her analysis of the erosion of Russian Sign Language among immigrants to Israel. The final part describes how educators and other "foreign"visitors can influence indigenous sign languages. Karin Hoyer delineates the effects of international sign and gesture on Albanian Sign Language. Jean Ann, Wayne H. Smith, and Chiangsheng Yu close this significant collection by assessing contact between Mainland China's sign language and Taiwan Sign Language in the Ch'iying School in Taiwan.

The meaning of any linguistic expression resides not only in the words, but in the way those words are conveyed. Miako N. P. Rankin explores this crucial interrelatedness of form and meaning in the context of American Sign Language, specifically in relation to the concept of non-agent focus - the ASL equivalent of the passive voice in English. Rankin has determined that the pattern of form-meaning correlation characteristic of non-agent focus is used prolifically in day-to-day language and that the recognition of the frequency of this pattern has wide implications for the acquisition of ASL, the development of curricula for teaching ASL, and the analysis of ASL discourse in effective interpretation.

Signs and Voices addresses the effects of a range of modern scientific and social developments - such as cochlear implants, genetic engineering, and educational mainstreaming - on deaf culture. The book is split into three sections, the first focusing on culture and identity, the second on language and literacy, and the third on American Sign Language in the arts. An excellent DVD supplements the text, providing footage of ASL performances of some of the poetry and dramatic works discussed in the arts section of the book.