Deaf studies

This article concerns the forms of involvement of « not scientific » actors in research, and the emergence of new expertises, through the case of linguistic researches on sign languages. We show that the main registers of participation of deaf locutors can be described as activities of cultural and lin- guistic mediations. We then analyze what are the tasks and the responsibilities endorsed by these people within a laboratory of linguistics specialized in the analysis of the Quebecois Sign Language. This article, which relies on an ethnographic analy- sis of these scientific activities, shows how the locutors invol- ved in these researches are becoming experts. It suggests articulating the studies on science, on forms of collective actions and on emergence of new expertises, and evokes the central character of an analysis of practices – even routine – of scientific inscription and communication.

The paper traces argumentations by the Deaf community in favor of deafness against the Cochlear implant and the impact of concepts like ethnicity, kinship, communities, and  the intimate living with a technical device - in german language - in: Karin Harrasser, Susanne Roeßiger (Hg.), Parahuman. Neue Perspektiven auf das Leben mit Technik [Schriften des Deutschen Hygiene-Museums Dresden, Bd. 12], Köln (Böhlau) 2016, 91-103

The rendering of English to BSL within television settings provides us an opportunity to identify ways in which written languages are translated into oral languages (Ong 1982, Furniss 2004), using Kade’s definition (cited in Pöchhacker, 2004) as a starting point. The distribution of blinks is compared in Deaf and hearing Translator/Interpreters to illuminate the role of preparation and rehearsal. Think-aloud-protocols are used to explore whether differences between the two groups point to a contrast between translation and interpretation processes.

In this talk, the presenter will address the nature of impairments of sight and hearing in education, and how they affect teaching and learning in the classroom, through three specific topics:  firstly, he will summarise the nature of hearing and sight impairments, and identify the nature of the different forms of impairment; secondly, he will summarise the causes of such impairments, and many of the cultural and social stigmas that go with them; thirdly; he will address the problems that can arise in class between teachers and students with impairments, and how these can be overcome.

The article discusses the multiple discrimination, normalization and stigmatization experienced by deaf LGBT youth in Sicily, Italy, on the basis of a study of their everyday life (specifically school years and peer interactions). So far in Italy, very little attention has been paid to multiple discrimination and, specifically, to homophobic violence towards disabled individuals. It is, therefore, impossible to consider any valid sampling of the desired population and very few reports have been produced. The authors, a sociologist and a psychologist, carry out an analysis of the results obtained from interviews with 15 LGBT individuals recruited through social networks, thematic chats, and associations. This preliminary analysis aims at identifying the key arguments which could form the basis for future strategic inclusion programs and further research projects.

In April 2019, learners of the eighth grade in Poland took the eighth-grade exam introduced by the 2017 education reform. The test is going to assess the extent to which they mastered the material specified in the 2017 General Education Core Curriculum. The article focuses on the comparison of eighth-grade English exam sheet for hearing learners and exam sheet for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing learners, in terms of working time, types and number of tasks, requirements and tested language skills. The article presents differences and similarities between mentioned exam versions and provides characteristics of d/Deaf learners.

Abstrak: Mahasiswa Tunarungu menghadapi kesulitan penguasaan bahasa, khususnya memahami leksem yang berkonsep Abstrak dan Emosi. Hal ini dikarenakan tunarungu sangat mengandalkan referent (acuan) dalam memahami makna kata. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui (1) bagaimanakah tingkat pemahaman tunarungu terhadap leksem yang berkonsep emosi dan abstrak, (2) Apakah latar belakang pendidikan mahasiswa tunarungu (SMA atau SMA LB) berperan dalam membentuk pemahaman arti abstrak dan emosi? Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan mengadakan tes tertulis yang berisikan soal leksem berkonsep abstrak dan emosi dengan acuan dan tanpa acuan (gambar). Analisis dilakukan dengan mempertimbangkan dua hal, yaitu pemahaman tunarungu terhadap arti leksem dan ketepatan konteks penggunaan leksem dalam kalimat. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada kata abstrak acuan tidak terlalu berpengaruh pada pemahaman tunarungu, sedangkan pada leksem emosi acuan berpengaruh dalam membantu tunarungu memahami makna leksem.

Celem niniejszego artykułu jest omówienie zadań uczelni wyższych w zakresie
zapewnienia studentom głuchym i niedosłyszącym warunków do pełnego udziału
w zajęciach akademickich. Szczególną uwagę zwracamy na konieczność wykorzystywania polskiego języka migowego (PJM) jako pełnowartościowego medium komunikacji. Za kluczowe zadanie uczelni należy uznać zapewnienie profesjonalnej
obsługi tłumaczeniowej w  tym języku. Konieczna jest współpraca z  tłumaczami
o najwyższych kwalifikacjach – nie tylko biegle władającymi PJM, ale także posiadającymi odpowiednie doświadczenie w tłumaczeniu specjalistycznym/naukowym
oraz świadomość kwestii etycznych związanych z wykonywaniem tego zawodu.
Ważnym zadaniem uczelni jest odpowiednie przygotowanie nauczycieli akademickich do pracy ze studentami głuchymi i niedosłyszącymi. W czynieniu dydaktyki akademickiej przystępną dla studentów z ubytkiem słuchu pomóc mogą również
słyszący asystenci prowadzący notatki w trakcie zajęć lub opracowujący transkrypcje z nagrań wykładów. Jako przykład dobrych praktyk w tym zakresie przedstawiamy rozwiązania stosowane obecnie przez Uniwersytet Warszawski, a w szczególności przez Biuro ds. Osób Niepełnosprawnych (BON) tej uczelni.

Academic education of the deaf
The purpose of this article is to discuss the tasks of higher education institutions as regards the creation of conditions that would make it possible for deaf
and hard of hearing students to fully participate in academic classes. Particular
attention is paid to the necessity of using Polish Sign Language (PJM) as a full-
-fledged medium of communication. Providing professional sign language interpretation services should be considered a key task facing higher education
institutions. It is necessary to work with interpreters with the highest qualifications – not only those who are fluent in PJM but also those who have appropriate experience in specialist/scientific interpreting and are aware of ethical issues connected with pursuing this profession. Another important task of higher education institutions is to properly prepare academic teachers to work
with deaf and hard of hearing students. Academic teaching may be made more
accessible to students with hearing loss with the help of hearing assistants who
could take notes during classes or prepare transcripts of recordings of the lectures. As an example of good practice in this area, we present the solutions
currently used by the University of Warsaw, and in particular by the Office for
Persons with Disabilities (BON).

Understanding deafness not as a disability but as a benefit and vital aspect of humanity’s diversity

Through their in-depth articulation of Deaf Gain, the contributors to this pathbreaking volume approach being deaf as a distinct way of being, one that opens perceptions, perspectives, and insights less common to the majority of hearing persons. By framing deaf lives in terms of intellectual, creative, and cultural benefits, Deaf Gain recognizes physical and cognitive difference as vital to human diversity.


https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/deaf-gain

Leisure activities of hearing-impaired people 
Summary 
Leisure time, the budget allocated for it and making use of it perceived as one of indicators of quality of life is still an up-to-date research issue for representatives of various fields (e.g. sociology, economics, the area of tourism and recreation). However, in publications tackling this theme, there is still too little attention paid to problems of people with special needs. The authors of the present paper attempt to pinpoint present ways of spending free time in a chosen group of the disabled, i.e. in the environment of hearing-impaired people.  The major purpose of the research is to define (1) a budget and the way of spending spare time on weekdays, (2) the way of spending spare time at weekends and on public holidays and (3) when having a day off or holidays. The analysis is based on the results of surveys supervised by A. Zajadacz from March to September 2007 in most branches of the Polish Association of the Deaf (PZG, Polski Związek Głuchych). The surveys were carried out among 191 hearing-impaired people. The questionnaires were sent by post and respondents were asked to fill them in with the assistance of a sign language interpreter. While analysing the results, the information obtained in the course of interviews and observation carried out among the hearing-impaired was taken into account as well.  The results confirmed the recognised peculiarity of members of the social group in question, their tendency to ‘shut themselves off’ in their own environment called culturally deaf or linguistic minority (communicating in a sign language). The feedback of informants simultaneously denies the stereotype that all hearing-impaired people ‘are the same’ as it shows a great diversity of leisure time activities performed on weekdays, at weekends and on public holidays as well as on days off and during holidays. Typical weekday leisure activities include: PZG meetings, meetings with families and hearing-impaired friends, walks, reading newspapers, watching TV (with the assistance of a sign language interpreter). On Saturdays, Sundays and on public holidays, walks and meetings with friends are the most popular way of relaxation (both in the place of living and beyond it). Moreover, frequent watching TV, both with the support of the sign language and without it, and reading newspapers are characteristic activities in the place of living. During weekend outings, tourist trips are organized. While having days off or holidays, walks are most popular (they are equally popular at weekends and on public holidays) and leisure time is definitely dominated by outdoor and active ways of spending spare time, for example: sight-seeing, swimming, sun bathing, nature observation, riding a bicycle, walking in the mountains although one third of the surveyed people indicated watching TV and reading. The presented findings should be used while preparing tourist offer aimed at hearing-impaired people. Making them popular may enhance perceiving the peculiarity of problems of this group of people in the society.

Deafness is unbound by geography. Deaf people constitute a heterogeneous, globalized ethnic minority who are singularly linked. Often thought to be rendered powerless by disability, deaf people generate forms of power that disrupt conventional ontology and epistemology by way of divergent adaptations of visuospatial language modalities. As creators and users, deaf people have positioned themselves at the cutting-edge of innovation by developing and repurposing digital technologies to secure insurgent power in the face of sociopolitical oppression. This paper establishes digital environments of deaf education (DE2) as an object of study. Research reviewed in this study (Bauman & Murray, 2014; Thoutenhoofd, 2010; Young and Temple, 2014), demonstrates that multimodality is a critically important but undertheorized concept related to power in deaf education. The paper reviews multimodality theory, entrained as a lens to examine DE2. Findings are subdivided into three categories: (1) the purposes for which DE2 are used, (2) the practices constitutive of DE2, and (3) the characteristics of learners and educators within DE2. The paper closes by examining DE2 exemplars via multimodality.
This paper contextualizes multimodality theory in digital-epistemological paradigms and analyzes their combined effects upon operations of power in deaf pedagogical practices, including how knowledge is created and shared by deaf people using digital technologies and pedagogical practices derived thereof. This investigation examines how technosocial tools are embedded in a nexus of historical, social, political, and educational changes—at key times, deaf people effectuate change with celerity. This paper argues that theoretical deaf research is clarified by multimodality; likewise, multimodality benefits by considering deaf ontologies/epistemologies. Converging domains illuminate the dynamism and synergy of technosocial changes in history, and contributes to literatures on the history of technology by documenting complex, interdependent relationships between digital knowledge modalities and the deaf users who drive their development.

Abstract: Th main aim of the article is to present the conclusions of a series of studies performed over a period of twelve years, dedicated to the tourism of Deaf people who are users of sign language. Th synthesis of the research results (including, amongst others, a comparative analysis of the demand for tourism of Deaf people [n=292] and hearing people [n=1780] ) became the basis for the development of a “system of action stimulating the growth of tourism for Deaf people”. Such action requires a consistent long-term process on numerous levels which will lead to an increase an accessible tourism for sign language users in the future. Th proposed system of action includes elements of “external support” and “internal action” which are necessary for the
development of an “accessible tourism subsystem”. Th fist of these elements includes proposals for action directed at providing “equal opportunities” through the realisation of principles from
the “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (PwD), amongst others. Th second element on the same level in the “hierarchy” of the internal action subsystem, focuses on encouraging deaf people to improve their own life situation, to make their expectations in regards
to the available tourism opportunities known and to participate in their creation (according to the assumptions of universal design). Both subsystems create the basis for the development of an additional, central “accessible tourism subsystem” for deaf people, the essence of which should be the appropriately structured transfer of tourism information.

About five percent of the American population suffer some degree of hearing loss while 400,000 Americans are classified as deaf. Generally given less-than-adequate education, these people are forced into the lower socioeconomic levels of society and frequently isolated from the hearing world by an inherent communication barrier that serves only to deprive them further of social interaction and elevation. The social worker called upon to counsel a deaf person often finds that the communication barrier may well be the first and foremost problem to overcome before rehabilitation of the deaf client can proceed. Unindoctrinated in the esoteric communication systems of the deaf, the social worker may ultimately realize that the services of a competent interpreter are necessary. This paper points up some of the communication problems arising in a social worker's relationship with the deaf client in the four service delivery systems highlighted in the NASW Symposium. 1) Juvenile and criminal justice: Thirty-eight states have no legal provisions to require the employment of an interpreter in court cases involving deaf persons. In addition, courts all too often press into service interpreters who may otherwise be well qualified but who have no knowledge or expertise in the peculiarities of legal interpreting. 2) Health and mental health: Adequate health and mental health opportunities are only now being afforded the deaf, but many deaf people fear to take advantage of the services offered because they have insufficient communication with the doctors and counselors. 3) Public education: The very systems that are given the responsibility of preparing deaf children for their future lives frequently deny those children their basic human rights to communicate with their natural language—American Sign Language. 4) Employment: Not only discriminated against in employment but many times rejected for job training and counseling to secure good jobs, the deaf become victims of a vicious cycle perpetuated due to a lack of proper utilization of interpreter services.

This is a study of ambiguities and tensions that occur within the role of the bilingual/bicultural researcher in an ethnographic study. This manuscript presents an analysis of three instances from two interviews in a study on the acculturation of deaf students in deaf kindergarten classrooms in Japan and the US. This is an auto-ethnographic analysis of conflicts found in fluctuating between multiple roles: research assistant, interpreter, cultural mediator, and sociolinguistic consultant. In these examples my bicultural knowledge allowed me to identify “hidden” meanings overlooked by other members of the research team. However, my interpreter role at times made it awkward to contribute my insights to the research team. The findings of this study show that interpreters who are linguistically and culturally in-between the researchers and researched play a crucial but delicate role in cross-cultural studies. INTRODUCTION Removing our shoes at the edge of the tatami mat, our group of se...

This article takes as its entry point the borrowing of coming out discourse in Disability Studies. It first discusses the limits of using such analogies and then investigates its fit when considering the specificity of the Deaf experience. The research is based on five personal histories garnered through in­depth interviews with individuals primarily discussing their processes of coming to identify as Deaf, but also some discussion of coming to identify as gay/lesbian. Their stories indicate that unlike its deployment in broader disability studies, the discourse of coming out in relation to adopting a Deaf cultural identity does not resonate. Instead, the narratives show that while these Deaf individuals did use a sign for "coming out" to describe their process of identifying as gay/lesbian, they did not use it to describe their Deaf identity development. Their narratives of coming to identify as culturally Deaf instead predominantly use a phrase that can interpreted from sign language as "becoming Deaf," although some of the same processes and features of identity development are present. It concludes with a discussion of the tensions between Deaf and disability studies, the limits of analogizing disability with other categories and particularly the limits of coming out discourse regarding the Deaf experience, as well as a discussion of the universalizing view of disability studies.

Learning opportunities for students with diverse needs in higher education have increased in recent decades. Consequently, university faculties need more evidence-based information about how students with diverse needs make the sense of the curricula. This paper presents findings from two co-design projects made at the Aalto University in collaboration with Deaf communities. It argues that the involvement of Deaf users in the design process can produce better digital environments in terms of (1) creating visual approaches designing interfaces and (2) providing new tools that advance the user experience of many other user groups such as dyslexic students and visual learners.

ABSTRACT: This paper addresses literacy from the perspective of deaf education studies 1, analyzing how this concept has reframed understandings about educational practices for deaf students, more specifically, the teaching of reading and writing in Portuguese. Based on three publications, two in the early 2000s related to scientific events in the field and a more recent one from 2018, we intend to show that a dialog was initially constructed between the concept of literacy as social practice and the sociolinguistic concept of bilingualism, which has been re-appropriated as a bilingual education project for the deaf. During this process, specific language practices have been established that have direct implications on how classroom literacy for deaf students has been seen until the present time. RESUMO: Neste artigo tematizamos o conceito de letramento a partir da sua retomada nos estudos sobre educação de surdos 1. Analisamos e argumentamos como esse conceito foi alçado para ressignificar o entendimento das práticas escolares desenvolvidas com alunos surdos, mais especificamente, o ensino da leitura e da escrita em português, num conjunto de textos pertencentes a três publicações-duas do início dos anos 2000, relacionadas a eventos científicos relevantes na área, e outra mais recente, do ano de 2018. Conforme pretendemos mostrar, esses trabalhos constroem, inicialmente, uma interlocução entre o conceito de letramento como prática social e o conceito sociolinguístico de bilinguismo (re)apropriado ao projeto de educação bilíngue para surdos. Nesse processo, instauram-se práticas de língua(gem) específicas a esse contexto, com repercussões diretas no modo como o letramento em sala de aula com alunos surdos vem sendo pensado até os dias de hoje. Palavras-Chave: Letramentos; Educação Linguística; Educação de Surdos; Minorias 1 This discussion began in Nogueira (2015) and has had a direct relationship with the development of the FAPESP research project "Semiotic Repertory and Education of the Deaf: Multilingualism and Multimodality in the Context of Sign Language" (n.2017/20256-0), as well as a current postdoctoral research project entitled "Interfaces entre o português e os repertórios sociossemióticos de aprendizes surdos" (Interfaces between Portuguese and socio-semiotic repertories of deaf learners).