scholarly journals Revisiting the Past to Understand the Present: The Linguistic Ecology of the Singapore Deaf Community and the Historical Evolution of Singapore Sign Language (SgSL)

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phoebe Tay ◽  
Bee Chin Ng
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Social Transitions ◽  
Deaf Person ◽  
Road Map ◽  
International Trends ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
External Forces

Singapore, a young nation with a colonial past from 1819, has seen drastic changes in the sociolinguistic landscape, which has left indelible marks on the Singapore society and the Singapore deaf community. The country has experienced many political and social transitions from British colonialism to attaining independence in 1965 and thereafter. Since independence, English-based bilingualism has been vigorously promoted as part of nation-building. While the roles of the multiple languages in use in Singapore feature prominently in the discourse on language planning, historical records show no mention of how these impacts on the deaf community. The first documented deaf person in archival documents is a Chinese deaf immigrant from Shanghai who established the first deaf school in Singapore in 1954 teaching Shanghainese Sign Language (SSL) and Mandarin. Since then, the Singapore deaf community has seen many shifts and transitions in education programming for deaf children, which has also been largely influenced by exogeneous factors such as trends in deaf education in the United States A pivotal change that has far-reaching impact on the deaf community today, is the introduction of Signing Exact English (SEE) in 1976. This was in keeping with the statal English-based bilingual narrative. The subsequent decision to replace SSL with SEE has dramatic consequences for the current members of the deaf community resulting in internal divisions and fractiousness with lasting implications for the cohesion of the community. This publication traces the origins of Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) by giving readers (and future scholars) a road map on key issues and moments in this history. Bi- and multi-lingualism in Singapore as well as external forces will also be discussed from a social and historical perspective, along with the interplay of different forms of language ideologies. All the different sign languages and sign systems as well as the written/spoken languages used in Singapore, interact and compete with as well as influence each other. There will be an exploration of how both internal factors (local language ecology) and external factors (international trends and developments in deaf education), impact on how members of the deaf community negotiate their deaf identities.

Bicultural, Bilingual, and Bimodal Deaf Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Jones
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Visual Learning ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Research Issues

Deaf education, particularly in the United States, is an ongoing and controversial conundrum. The term “deaf” applies not only to a medical diagnosis that defines hearing loss and speech ability but also to a cultural and linguistic recognition of a way of life that is deeply rooted in deaf community practices often unknown to “hearing” communities. The tension between these different philosophical and epistemological worldviews starts the moment a baby is identified as “deaf.” This identification affects language and modality choice, school placement, literacy instruction, curriculum, academic achievement, marriage partners, social groups and organization, and even meaningful and equitable employment. The inherent struggle in deaf education is the desire on the part of monolingual, hearing-centric educators, professionals, and parents to rely on technological solutions or therapeutic interventions to produce “hearing” speaking citizens. These participants are expecting the same outcomes from deaf children as they are from hearing children, emphasizing auditory/oral learning without understanding the sociocultural, linguistic, and biological challenges experienced by deaf children. While inclusive education may seem to “accommodate” the idea of equality, perversely those who experience the process can vouch for the inequalities, inequity, and injustice in monolinguistic deaf education. Most of society has yet to recognize that education of deaf children is necessarily embodied in a far more complex cultural and linguistic ecosystem. For American deaf persons, this ecosystem involves American Sign Language, visual learning strategies within culturally and linguistically driven content instruction, and cultural traditions and experiences that are indigenous to deaf communities. How are best practices addressed when the medium of instruction differs in modality and structure (i.e., spoken language vs. signed language); when reading instruction involves a different mapping process; when school assessments are only available in a spoken language; and when lack of teacher qualifications may hinder learning. Historically, conflict over language ideologies has dominated academic discourse about classroom pedagogy, literacy, teacher training, and educational research. Issues of power and language dominance emerge around curriculum instruction and assessment, as deaf individuals struggle to take their rightful place in a largely hearing deaf education environment. However, both hearing and deaf scholars in the field of neuroscience, child development, and Deaf studies have contributed to critical understanding about a bilingual-bimodal ecosystem in deaf education. This research has set the stage for reevaluating systematic, linguistic, and pedagogical traditions and has raised ethical questions regarding education and sign language research with deaf participants. By including members of the deaf community in the discourse, the emergence of a new practice of bilingual-bimodal education for deaf children secures a sociocultural and sociolinguistic foundation for all deaf children. Research findings support the veracity of a bilingual-bimodal deaf education classroom.

What We Can Learn From Hearing Parents of Deaf Children

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Flaherty
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Language Technologies ◽  
Depth Interviews

Hearing parents of deaf children face stresses and demands related to parenting a deaf child, including difficult choices about language, technologies, education and identity for their children (Marschark, 1997). To date, few researchers have discussed the unique challenges faced by this group. Through a series of semistructured, in-depth interviews with 18 parents, this study investigated the experiences of hearing parents of deaf children spanning various life stages. A phenomenological approach identified 5 themes most pertinent to understanding their experiences. Each theme offers insight, particularly for professionals, into the distinctive issues that might arise at the time of diagnosis of deafness and reveals the challenges hearing parents face when confronted with a barrage of decisions, including choice of oral or sign language, mainstream or special deaf education, and identity with the hearing or Deaf community. The central message from this work is to inform hearing parents of deaf children and professionals working with these parents of the likely challenges that they may face.

Confronting Assumptions in Immigrant Multilingual Deaf Education

2022 ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Millicent Malinda Musyoka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Population ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Multilingual Education

Within the American deaf community, multilingualism is evidence among deaf individuals who use three (or more) languages daily. Despite the linguistic diversity, limited research focuses on multilingualism, multilingual education, or multilingual development in this population. The increasing multilingual immigrant D/HH student population in the United States coupled with a scarcity of research on multilingual immigrant D/HH learners has triggered various assumptions about their education. This chapter will focus on addressing the assumptions surrounding the education of immigrant multilingual deaf learners.

scholarly journals W poszukiwaniu eklektycznego paradygmatu edukacji głuchych

2018 ◽  
pp. 281-297
Author(s):  
Piotr Tomaszewski ◽  
Ewelina Moroń
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Hard Of Hearing ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World

In recent years, changes in the approach to deafness and, hence, in the education of the deaf and hard of hearing have been occurring around the world, including Poland. Deafness is increasingly perceived as a sociocultural phenomenon and not merely as a medical one, while sign language is seen as a natural language that can be used in deaf schools and by large numbers of d/Deaf people. Nevertheless, it seems at present that both deafness models are incompatible with each other for ideological reasons although they are concurrent, the medical model being dominant and the sociocultural one being alternative. For that reason, both the d/Deaf community and the deaf education still contend with significan problems related to the language policy, discrimination based on deafness (audism), sign language (linguicism), disability (ableism) or the specificityof conflictsamong the d/Deaf themselves (deafism).All this will be illustrated in this paper, along with suggested possible solutions.

scholarly journals Serbian Sign Language: officially recognised, yet not used in deaf education

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Dragana Raicevic Bajic ◽  
Gordana Nikolic ◽  
Mihailo Gordic ◽  
Kimberley Mouvet ◽  
Mieke Van Herreweghe
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Deaf Signers

The No Child Left Behind Act in the US (2001), the programme “Write it Right” in Australia (1994) and the Council of Europe’s project Languages of Schooling (2006) point towards a growing awareness of unequal access to education. All over the world legislative initiatives have been taken to ensure that all students have access, both in terms of social cost and linguistic barriers (Reffell & McKee, 2009). However, in some countries, the deaf community with its often invisible cultural linguistic identity appears not to benefit from the change in ideology towards equal education. In this paper we are looking at one such deaf community, i.e. the Serbian deaf community, and at past and present language ideologies, attitudes and practices with respect to their language, i.e. Serbian Sign Language or SZJ. We start by situating these ideological positions of language users and educators within a broader historical context by giving the first account of SZJ, its place in education and its history within the Western Balkan sociopolitical and linguistic context. We then focus on a thematic analysis of data from interviews with deaf signers and teachers about how they experienced and perceived language in education. This revealed that deaf signers see SZJ as the most important building block in their learning process whilst the teachers emphasise hearing as the major factor in learning. The findings clearly point at a discrepancy in sign language ideologies between deaf SZJ users and their teachers resulting in conflicting attitudes and practices in Serbia today.   Keywords: Serbian Sign Language, deaf education, language policy, practice, language attitudes

Isu dan Cabaran Dalam Penggunaan Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia (BIM) untuk Pengajaran Perkara Asas Fardhu Ain (PAFA)

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syar Meeze Mohd Rashid ◽  
Norlidah Alias ◽  
Zawawi Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Communication Barrier

This article discusses issues and challenges faced by special education teachers in using Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia to teach the deaf basics of fardhu ain. Firstly, the shortage of Islamic terminologies in sign language leads to communication barrier between the teacher and students. Besides that, the Fardhu Ain teachers are not well-versed with sign language. Another issue is that the curriculum used is meant for the typical community and unsuitable for the deaf community. Abstrak Artikel ini membincangkan tentang isu dan cabaran yang dihadapi guru  pendidikan  khas dalam  penggunaan  BIM untuk pengajaran PAFA kepada golongan pekak. Isu dan cabaran  yang  pertama  ialah  kekurangan  bahasa  isyarat agama  Islam  yang  menyebabkan  kesukaran  golongan pekak  dan  guru  yang  mengajar  untuk  berkomunikasi bagi  membincangkan  perkara   yang  berkaitan   dengan agama. Selain    itu,    isu    dan    cabaran    kedua    ialah ketidakmahiran    guru    PAFA    dalam    berkomunikasi menggunakan bahasa isyarat. Seterusnya isu dan cabaran ketiga   ialah ketidaksesuaian   kurikulum   PAFA   untuk golongan    pekak    kerana kurikulum    PAFA    yang digunakan kepada golongan pekak turut digunakan sama oleh golongan tipikal Muslim yang lain.

The Role of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the Korean War

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty

scholarly journals “The Future of Archaeology Is Antiracist”: Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Ayana Omilade Flewellen ◽  
Justin P. Dunnavant ◽  
Alicia Odewale ◽  
Alexandra Jones ◽  
Tsione Wolde-Michael ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Heritage Preservation ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The North ◽  
Road Map ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future

This forum builds on the discussion stimulated during an online salon in which the authors participated on June 25, 2020, entitled “Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter,” and which was cosponsored by the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA), the North American Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG), and the Columbia Center for Archaeology. The online salon reflected on the social unrest that gripped the United States in the spring of 2020, gauged the history and conditions leading up to it, and considered its rippling throughout the disciplines of archaeology and heritage preservation. Within the forum, the authors go beyond reporting the generative conversation that took place in June by presenting a road map for an antiracist archaeology in which antiblackness is dismantled.

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