scholarly journals Deaf Ni-Vanuatu and their signs: A sociolinguistic study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacqueline Iseli
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Field Methodology ◽  
Degree Of Similarity ◽  
Similarity Of Signs

<p>This thesis provides the first documentation and description of the signs created and used by deaf individuals in Vanuatu. The specific aims of this research were as follows: to establish the sociolinguistic context experienced by deaf people in Vanuatu; to identify the repertoire and characteristics of signs used by the deaf participants; to compare features of participants’ individual signs with the characteristics of home signs and emerging sign languages; and to consider the degree of similarity and potential similarity of signs between participants and how this reflects individuals’ opportunities for contact with other deaf people and signing interlocutors. The limitations of this study are that field methodology for data collection was developed in situ as conditions allowed. The sociolinguistic context for deaf Ni-Vanuatu confirms that language isolation leads to marginalisation from community and society. The study established that these home sign lexicons were limited in quantity and conceptual range, and that shared background knowledge was essential for comprehension. Overall, 22 handshapes were documented, and the predominant handshapes unmarked. Most participants preferred handling strategy for depicting signs. Some evidence of noun-verb distinction was noted in the repertoire of some participants. However, across this range of formational characteristics, results showed significant individual variations. Furthermore, multiple barriers have precluded development of a shared sign language and any form of deaf community.</p>

scholarly journals Deaf Ni-Vanuatu and their signs: A sociolinguistic study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacqueline Iseli
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Field Methodology ◽  
Degree Of Similarity ◽  
Similarity Of Signs

<p>This thesis provides the first documentation and description of the signs created and used by deaf individuals in Vanuatu. The specific aims of this research were as follows: to establish the sociolinguistic context experienced by deaf people in Vanuatu; to identify the repertoire and characteristics of signs used by the deaf participants; to compare features of participants’ individual signs with the characteristics of home signs and emerging sign languages; and to consider the degree of similarity and potential similarity of signs between participants and how this reflects individuals’ opportunities for contact with other deaf people and signing interlocutors. The limitations of this study are that field methodology for data collection was developed in situ as conditions allowed. The sociolinguistic context for deaf Ni-Vanuatu confirms that language isolation leads to marginalisation from community and society. The study established that these home sign lexicons were limited in quantity and conceptual range, and that shared background knowledge was essential for comprehension. Overall, 22 handshapes were documented, and the predominant handshapes unmarked. Most participants preferred handling strategy for depicting signs. Some evidence of noun-verb distinction was noted in the repertoire of some participants. However, across this range of formational characteristics, results showed significant individual variations. Furthermore, multiple barriers have precluded development of a shared sign language and any form of deaf community.</p>

Dictionaries of Libras from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Jorge Bidarra ◽  
Tania Aparecida Martins
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
First Century ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Historical Trajectory

Sign languages, structurally different from oral languages, are based on gestures and involve their own grammars and repertoires of lexical units (signals or signs), and they play an important role in establishing communication among deaf people around the world. This chapter primarily focuses on the development of dictionaries for Libras (an acronym for Língua Brasileira de Sinais, or ‘Brazilian Language of Signs’), the natural language of the Brazilian deaf community. It traces the influence of the first dictionary of the deaf in Brazil, Iconographia dos Signaes dos Surdos-Mudos (‘Iconography of Signs of Deaf-Mutes’), which was published in 1875 by the National Institute of Education of the Deaf (INES) and authored by Flausino José da Gama, a student at the Institute. In their demonstration of the influence and inspiration this dictionary gave to lexicographers who followed da Gama, Bidarra and Martins outline the historical trajectory of sign languages up to the present, considering different and parallel paths for sign languages in different countries, forms of stigmatization of sign language, and barriers to its use. Incorporating this historical and transnational analysis, Bidarra and Martins present both a broad discussion of the various models of sign language dictionaries that have been used around the world and an in-depth analysis of the development of Libras dictionaries in Brazil to the modern day.

Methods for Studying Sign Languages

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceil Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Data Reduction ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Black Deaf

This chapter begins by sharing an anecdote involving recruiting members of the Houston black Deaf community for a project on Black ASL to participate in the filming. The anecdote serves as an example of the kinds of methodological issues that can arise when collecting sociolinguistic data in Deaf communities. Many of these issues are of course not unique to Deaf communities—researchers who work in spoken-language communities encounter many of the same issues. The chapter discusses methods for the sociolinguistic studies in sign language communities. It includes four main topics: data collection, defining variables and constraints, data reduction, and dissemination of the findings.

scholarly journals A Process to Develop Sign Language Corpus using Crowdsourcing

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 2098-2103
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
General Term ◽  
Small Data ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
The World ◽  
Concept Application ◽  
Language Corpus

Humans use language in order to communicate between one another. There exist a number of languages which are either spoken or written. Among these languages, there exists a special type of language called Sign Language (SL). Sign language is a general term which includes any kind of gestural language that makes use of signs and gestures to convey message. Although the deaf community feels comfortable while using Sign Language as their mode of communication, but they face a lot of problems as well. Therefore, in order to help and assist the deaf community a repository of different sign languages are essential for each sign language. This work presents a process to develop a repository by collecting and validating sign language gestures of any language by involving the deaf community and language experts. A small data collection based on a proof-of-concept application has also been presented in this work. Lastly, it highlights the benefits of such corpus by discussing possible applications that can be built to serve the deaf community of the world at large.

Sign languages to unfold the Universe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Varano
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Italian Language ◽  
Main Medium ◽  
The Universe

&lt;p&gt;Sign languages &amp;#8203;&amp;#8203;arise from the need of communities of deaf people to communicate with each other and with others. Like all natural languages, they are tied to the traditions and cultures of the communities that invented and developed them. The sign language used in Italy is the Italian Sign Language, LIS.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The strong iconicity of LIS is very interesting from the point of view of communication and didactics of astronomy, also for the hearing impaired. The signs used for astronomical concepts and objects often express the meaning and nature of what is represented, much more than a single word in the Italian language does.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;LIS is therefore effective not only for inclusive communication aimed at deaf people, but it can be effective for everyone, both in terms of equity and awareness of diversity and in terms of knowledge of astronomy and its link with culture and tradition.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;We will present a set of videos published on EduINAF, the outreach and education online magazine of the Italian National Isntitute for Astrophysics, in which the LIS is the main medium of the storytelling. Each video has subtitles, in order to make the LIS understandable for all.&lt;/p&gt;

Multimedia Dictionary and Synthesis of Sign Language

2011 ◽  
pp. 268-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franc Solina ◽  
Slavko Krapez ◽  
Ales Jaklic ◽  
Vito Komac
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Proper Nouns ◽  
Basic Meaning ◽  
The World

Deaf people, as a marginal community, may have severe problems in communicating with hearing people. Usually, they have a lot of problems even with such—for hearing people—simple tasks as understanding the written language. However, deaf people are very skilled in using a sign language, which is their native language. A sign language is a set of signs or hand gestures. A gesture in a sign language equals a word in a written language. Similarly, a sentence in a written language equals a sequence of gestures in a sign language. In the distant past deaf people were discriminated and believed to be incapable of learning and thinking independently. Only after the year 1500 were the first attempts made to educate deaf children. An important breakthrough was the realization that hearing is not a prerequisite for understanding ideas. One of the most important early educators of the deaf and the first promoter of sign language was Charles Michel De L’Epée (1712-1789) in France. He founded the fist public school for deaf people. His teachings about sign language quickly spread all over the world. Like spoken languages, different sign languages and dialects evolved around the world. According to the National Association of the Deaf, the American Sign Language (ASL) is the third most frequently used language in the United States, after English and Spanish. ASL has more than 4,400 distinct signs. The Slovenian sign language (SSL), which is used in Slovenia and also serves as a case study sign language in this chapter, contains approximately 4,000 different gestures for common words. Signs require one or both hands for signing. Facial expressions which accompany signing are also important since they can modify the basic meaning of a hand gesture. To communicate proper nouns and obscure words, sign languages employ finger spelling. Since the majority of signing is with full words, signed conversation can proceed with the same pace as spoken conversation.

The effect of sociolinguistic factors on variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-88
Author(s):  
Katie Mudd ◽  
Hannah Lutzenberger ◽  
Connie de Vos ◽  
Paula Fikkert ◽  
Onno Crasborn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Family Member ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Lexical Variation ◽  
Supplementary Material ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Description Task

Abstract Abstract (International Sign) Sign languages can be categorized as shared sign languages or deaf community sign languages, depending on the context in which they emerge. It has been suggested that shared sign languages exhibit more variation in the expression of everyday concepts than deaf community sign languages (Meir, Israel, Sandler, Padden, & Aronoff, 2012). For deaf community sign languages, it has been shown that various sociolinguistic factors condition this variation. This study presents one of the first in-depth investigations of how sociolinguistic factors (deaf status, age, clan, gender and having a deaf family member) affect lexical variation in a shared sign language, using a picture description task in Kata Kolok. To study lexical variation in Kata Kolok, two methodologies are devised: the identification of signs by underlying iconic motivation and mapping, and a way to compare individual repertoires of signs by calculating the lexical distances between participants. Alongside presenting novel methodologies to study this type of sign language, we present preliminary evidence of sociolinguistic factors that may influence variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon.

Constituent order in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and South African Sign Language (SASL)

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myriam Vermeerbergen ◽  
Mieke Van Herreweghe ◽  
Philemon Akach ◽  
Emily Matabane
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
South African ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Degree Of Similarity

This paper reports on a comparison of word order issues, and more specifically on the order of the verb and its arguments, in two unrelated sign languages: South African Sign Language and Flemish Sign Language. The study comprises the first part of a larger project in which a number of grammatical mechanisms and structures are compared across the two sign languages, using a corpus consisting of similar VGT and SASL-data of a various nature. The overall goal of the project is to contribute to a further understanding of the issue of the degree of similarity across unrelated sign languages. However, the different studies also mean a further exploration of the grammars of the two languages involved. In this paper the focus is on the analysis of isolated declarative sentences elicited by means of pictures. The results yield some interesting similarities across all signers but also indicate that — especially with regard to constituent order — there are important differences between the two languages.

FC15-03 - Mental distress and quality of life in a deaf population

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1900-1900
Author(s):  
J. Fellinger
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
General Population ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Significant Difference

IntroductionHigh risks of mental illness within the deaf community are reported. The assessment of the level of mental distress and quality of life in the deaf community is difficult due to communication problems in spoken and written language. The deaf community is characterized by the use of sign language.ObjectiveThis study aims to compare levels of psychological distress and the quality of life with levels reported by the signing deaf people and the hearing population.MethodsA measure of acceptable reliability using sign language is described. The interactive computerised package including special versions of the WHOQOL-BREF, the GHQ-12 and five subscales of the BSI was administered to a large community sample of deaf people (n = 236), and results were compared with normative data for German speaking hearing people.ResultsThe deaf sample has a significantly poorer quality of life than the general population for the physical and psychological domains (p < 0,01) as measured by the WHOQOL-BREF. However, in the domain of social relationships no significant difference (p = 0,19) was demonstrated. All findings with the GHQ-12 and the BSI show much higher levels (p = 0,01) of emotional distress among the deaf.ConclusionAlthough a poorer quality of life and a higher level of mental distress is demonstrated the similarity to the general population in the domain social relationships shows that this does not affect all domains. These findings show the need for easily accessible health services for the deaf which offer sensitive communication with them.

scholarly journals Sign, language, and gesture in the brain: Some comments

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Campbell ◽  
Bencie Woll
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Developmental Research ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Language Perception ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIn contrast with two widely held and contradictory views – that sign languages of deaf people are “just gestures,” or that sign languages are “just like spoken languages” – the view from sign linguistics and developmental research in cognition presented by Goldin-Meadow & Brentari (G-M&B) indicates a more complex picture. We propose that neuroscience research suggests that a similar approach needs to be taken and offer some examples from research on the brain bases of sign language perception.

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