Sensing the rhythms of everyday life: Temporal integration and tactile translation in the Seattle Deaf-Blind community

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terra Edwards
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Temporal Integration ◽  
Linguistic Anthropology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Blind People ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Relational Patterns ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Visual Order

AbstractThis article is concerned with how social actors establish relations between language, the body, and the physical and social environment. The empirical focus is a series of interactions between Deaf-Blind people and tactile signed language interpreters in Seattle, Washington. Many members of the Seattle Deaf-Blind community were born deaf and, due to a genetic condition, lose their vision slowly over the course of many years. Drawing on recent work in language and practice theory, I argue that these relations are established by Deaf-Blind people through processes ofintegrationwhereby continuity between linguistic, embodied, and social elements of a fading visual order are made continuous with corresponding elements in an emerging tactile order. In doing so, I contribute to current attempts in linguistic anthropology to model the means by which embodied, linguistic, and social phenomena crystallize in relational patterns to yield worlds that take on the appearance of concreteness and naturalness. (Classifiers, Deaf-Blind, integration, interpretation, language and embodiment, practice, rhythm, Tactile American Sign Language, tactility)*

scholarly journals Multiply Marginalized: Indigenous Deaf Students’ Experiences in Higher Education

JCSCORE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-101
Author(s):  
Melanie McKay-Cody
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Linguistic Anthropology ◽  
College Experiences ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Visual Technologies

While there is a body of literature about the experiences of Indigenous college students, there is a complete lack of research on Indigenous Deaf college students (enrolled in either traditionally Deaf colleges, predominantly hearing colleges, or a combination of both). The question remains, what college experiences are Indigenous Deaf students having? This signed (American Sign Language) academic video-article examines the lived experience of ten Indigenous Deaf college students. In this study, these students’ experiences are viewed through the Indigenous Deaf Methodologies framework coined by the author. The Indigenous Deaf Methodologies framework uses linguistic anthropology, Indigenous Methodologies (from hearing Indigenous researchers), and Deaf Epistemology (from white Deaf studies). This study focuses on the using of American Sign Language, tribal signed language, visual technologies, and the unique epistemological experiences of Indigenous Deaf students during their college years. This video-article explains the challenges such students face within colleges during a period spanning the 1970s to the today. The author provides recommendations for future programming and accessibility for the next generations of Indigenous Deaf college students.

scholarly journals How visual experience and task context modulate the use of internal and external spatial coordinate for perception and action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginie Crollen ◽  
Tiffany Spruyt ◽  
Pierre Mahau ◽  
Roberto Bottini ◽  
Olivier Collignon
Keyword(s):  
Coordinate System ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Simon Task ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
The Body ◽  
Blind People ◽  
Coordinate Systems ◽  
Task Instructions ◽  
Congenitally Blind ◽  
External Frame

Recent studies proposed that the use of internal and external coordinate systems may be more flexible in congenitally blind when compared to sighted individuals. To investigate this hypothesis further, we asked congenitally blind and sighted people to perform, with the hands uncrossed and crossed over the body midline, a tactile TOJ and an auditory Simon task. Crucially, both tasks were carried out under task instructions either favoring the use of an internal (left vs. right hand) or an external (left vs. right hemispace) frame of reference. In the internal condition of the TOJ task, our results replicated previous findings (Röder et al., 2004) showing that hand crossing only impaired sighted participants’ performance, suggesting that blind people did not activate by default a (conflicting) external frame of reference. However, under external instructions, a decrease of performance was observed in both groups, suggesting that even blind people activated an external coordinate system in this condition. In the Simon task, and in contrast with a previous study (Roder et al., 2007), both groups responded more efficiently when the sound was presented from the same side of the response (‘‘Simon effect’’) independently of the hands position. This was true under the internal and external conditions, therefore suggesting that blind and sighted by default activated an external coordinate system in this task. All together, these data comprehensively demonstrate how visual experience shapes the default weight attributed to internal and external coordinate systems for action and perception depending on task demand.

scholarly journals Creative Thinking in Qualitative Research and Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof T. Konecki
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Journal Writing ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Phenomenological Research ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Intellectual Capacity

I would like to present the possibility of broadening the traditional methodological and technical skills of researcher and analyst, but also the intellectual capacity of the researcher associated with combining data, categorizing, linking categories, as well as the interpretation of the causes and consequences of the emergence of certain social phenomena. Some methodologies, methods, and research techniques are more conducive to creative conceptual and interpretive solutions. Therefore, I describe the serendipity phenomenon in such methodologies as grounded theory, ethnography, phenomenological research, and contemplative inquiry. The problem of intuition in qualitative research will be also described in the paper. There will be presented also some suggestions how to be creative in qualitative research. From the review of issues of creativity in qualitative research we can derive the following conclusions: Creativity in qualitative research depends on the strength of a priori conceptualization and stiffness of the adapted methods of research and analysis. If the methodology is more flexible (as the methodology of grounded theory), the researcher can get to phenomena that he/she has not realized and which are still scantily explored in his/her field of expertise. The phenomenological and contemplative approaches allow the use of the investigator’s feelings and experience as they appear in the studied phenomena, which usually does not take place in objectifying and positivistic research. The investigator may therefore consciously use these methodologies and approaches that foster creativity. The researchers can improve their skills in thinking and creative action by doing some methodical exercises (journal writing, writing poetry as a summary of the collected data, the use of art as representation of the phenomenon, the use of meditation, observation of the body feelings, humor, etc.).

Perceiving fingerspelling via point-light displays: The stimulus and the perceiver both matter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna C Quandt ◽  
Athena Willis ◽  
Carly Leannah
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Total N ◽  
Online Study ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Real Place ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Point Light

Signed language users communicate in a wide array of sub-optimal environments, such as in dim lighting or from a distance. While fingerspelling is a common and essential part of signed languages, the perception of fingerspelling in varying visual environments is not well understood. Signed languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) rely on visuospatial information that combines hand and bodily movements, facial expressions, and fingerspelling. Linguistic information in ASL is conveyed with movement and spatial patterning, which lends itself well to using dynamic Point Light Display (PLD) stimuli to represent sign language movements. We created PLD videos of fingerspelled location names. The location names were either Real (e.g., KUWAIT) or Pseudo-names (e.g., CLARTAND), and the PLDs showed either a High or a Low number of markers. In an online study, Deaf and Hearing ASL users (total N = 283) watched 27 PLD stimulus videos that varied by Realness and Number of Markers. We calculated accuracy and confidence scores in response to each video. We predicted that when signers see ASL fingerspelled letter strings in a suboptimal visual environment, language experience in ASL will be positively correlated with accuracy and self-rated confidence scores. We also predicted that Real location names would be understood better than Pseudo names. Our findings show that participants were more accurate and confident in response to Real place names than Pseudo names and for stimuli with High rather than Low markers. We also discovered a significant interaction between Age and Realness, which shows that as people age, they can better use outside world knowledge to inform their fingerspelling success. Finally, we examined the accuracy and confidence in fingerspelling perception in sub-groups of people who had learned ASL before the age of four. Studying the relationship between language experience with PLD fingerspelling perception allows us to explore how hearing status, ASL fluency levels, and age of language acquisition affect the core abilities of understanding fingerspelling.

scholarly journals Constructed Action in American Sign Language: A Look at Second Language Learners in a Second Modality

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Kim B. Kurz ◽  
Kellie Mullaney ◽  
Corrine Occhino
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Signed Language

Constructed action is a cover term used in signed language linguistics to describe multi-functional constructions which encode perspective-taking and viewpoint. Within constructed action, viewpoint constructions serve to create discourse coherence by allowing signers to share perspectives and psychological states. Character, observer, and blended viewpoint constructions have been well documented in signed language literature in Deaf signers. However, little is known about hearing second language learners’ use of constructed action or about the acquisition and use of viewpoint constructions. We investigate the acquisition of viewpoint constructions in 11 college students acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language in a second modality (M2L2). Participants viewed video clips from the cartoon Canary Row and were asked to “retell the story as if you were telling it to a deaf friend”. We analyzed the signed narratives for time spent in character, observer, and blended viewpoints. Our results show that despite predictions of an overall increase in use of all types of viewpoint constructions, students varied in their time spent in observer and character viewpoints, while blended viewpoint was rarely observed. We frame our preliminary findings within the context of M2L2 learning, briefly discussing how gestural strategies used in multimodal speech-gesture constructions may influence learning trajectories.

The Division of a Syndrome

2020 ◽  
pp. 166-188
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fein
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ethnographic Case Study ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Clinical Ethnography ◽  
The World ◽  
Medical Paradigm ◽  
Clinical Paradigm

This chapter provides an ethnographic case study of divided medicalization—the process through which multivalent, identitarian conditions get produced and then reduced to fit within a preexisting, disease-oriented clinical paradigm. The chapter is a clinical ethnography of a clinic located within a university medical center in an East Coast city, serving children diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. As medical categorizations and classifications expanded beyond the borders of the body to examine and remedy disorders of social life in the world, the staff shifted their own practice, exploring interventions that were playful and social, determined by pleasures as well as pathologies, and driven by the goal of expanding relationships rather than containing contagion. These interventions, however, crossed and complicated the clinic's carefully maintained boundaries between the inside and the outside of both the building and the body. In the end, the elements of autism that least fit within the existing medical paradigm were not incorporated into that paradigm but instead came to be extruded from it. Interpersonal, aesthetic, and identitarian elements of the condition were at first invited into but then gradually banished from the clinic, leaving behind an incomplete representation of complex social phenomena as diseases to be eliminated from individuals.

scholarly journals American Sign Language Recognition Using an FMCW Wireless Sensor (Student Abstract)

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 13781-13782
Author(s):  
Yuanqi Du ◽  
Nguyen Dang ◽  
Riley Wilkerson ◽  
Parth Pathak ◽  
Huzefa Rangwala ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Continuous Wave ◽  
The Body ◽  
Wireless Sensor ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
Sign Language Recognition ◽  
Wave Radar ◽  
Cloud Points

In today's digital world, rapid technological advancements continue to lessen the burden of tasks for individuals. Among these tasks is communication across perceived language barriers. Indeed, increased attention has been drawn to American Sign Language (ASL) recognition in recent years. Camera-based and motion detection-based methods have been researched extensively; however, there remains a divide in communication between ASL users and non-users. Therefore, this research team proposes the use of a novel wireless sensor (Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave Radar) to help bridge the gap in communication. In short, this device sends out signals that detect the user's body positioning in space. These signals then reflect off the body and back to the sensor, developing thousands of cloud points per second, indicating where the body is positioned in space. These cloud points can then be examined for movement over multiple consecutive time frames using a cell division algorithm, ultimately showing how the body moves through space as it completes a single gesture or sentence. At the end of the project, 95% accuracy was achieved in one-object prediction as well as 80% accuracy on cross-object prediction with 30% other objects' data introduced on 19 commonly used gestures. There are 30 samples for each gesture per person from three persons.

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