A Descriptive Analysis of Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana)

A Descriptive Analysis of Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana)

Author: Victoria Anna Sophie Nyst

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13:

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Adamorobe, a small Akan village in Ghana, has an unusually high incidence of hereditary deafness. As a result, a sign language came into being, Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL), which is unrelated to any other sign language described so far and is assumed to be about 200 years old. The present study describes selected aspects of AdaSL, notably phonology, lexicon, the expression of size and shape and the encoding of motion events. A comparison of these aspects with descriptions of other sign languages reveals interesting cross-linguistic differences in the use of iconicity as well as in the use of space and classifier constructions. Data were collected during three periods of fieldwork of nine months in total. Moreover, this study considers to what extent the social setting may influence the development of structural features in sign languages. This investigation nuances the impact the visual-spatial modality has on sign language structure. The book is of interest to scholars of sign linguistics, African linguistics, as well as contact linguistics and Deaf studies.


The Legal Recognition of Sign Languages

The Legal Recognition of Sign Languages

Author: Maartje De Meulder

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2019-06-17

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 1788924029

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This book presents the first ever comprehensive overview of national laws recognising sign languages, the impacts they have and the advocacy campaigns which led to their creation. It comprises 18 studies from communities across Europe, the US, South America, Asia and New Zealand. They set sign language legislation within the national context of language policies in each country and show patterns of intersection between language ideologies, public policy and deaf communities’ discourses. The chapters are grounded in a collaborative writing approach between deaf and hearing scholars and activists involved in legislative campaigns. Each one describes a deaf community’s expectations and hopes for legal recognition and the type of sign language legislation achieved. The chapters also discuss the strategies used in achieving the passage of the legislation, as well as an account of barriers confronted and surmounted (or not) in the legislative process. The book will be of interest to language activists in the fields of sign language and other minority languages, policymakers and researchers in deaf studies, sign linguistics, sociolinguistics, human rights law and applied linguistics.


The Syntax of American Sign Language

The Syntax of American Sign Language

Author: Carol Jan Neidle

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780262140676

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Recent research on the syntax of signed language has revealed that, apart from some modality-specific differences, signed languages are organized according to the same underlying principles as spoken languages. This book addresses the organization and distribution of functional categories in American Sign Language (ASL), focusing on tense, agreement and wh-constructions.


The Deaf Way

The Deaf Way

Author: Carol Erting

Publisher: Gallaudet University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 972

ISBN-13: 9781563680267

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Selected papers from the conference held in Washington DC, July 9-14, 1989.


Disabled Students in Higher Education

Disabled Students in Higher Education

Author: Sheila Riddell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-10-09

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1134327226

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As wider access to higher education becomes a top priority for governments in the UK and around the world, this ground-breaking piece of work raises the challenging questions that policy-makers, vice-chancellors and government officials are reluctant to ask. A highly qualified team of authors have closely analyzed rates of participation and the experiences of disabled students in higher education over a two year period. They compare the responses of eight different universities to the new anti-discriminatory practice, contrasting their social profiles, academic missions, support systems for disabled students and approaches for the implementation of change. Change comes under particular scrutiny, with a close examination of each university’s interpretation of ‘reasonable adjustments’, and the extent to which they have modified their campuses and teaching accordingly. Student case studies are used throughout to illustrate the real impact of institutional responses to the legislation. Disabled Students in Higher Education will make fascinating reading for students of education, social policy, politics, and disability studies, and for those working towards accredited university teacher status.


Abbé Sicard's Deaf Education

Abbé Sicard's Deaf Education

Author: Emmet Kennedy

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1137512865

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Abbé Sicard was a French revolutionary priest and an innovator of French and American sign language. He enjoyed a meteoric rise from Toulouse and Bordeaux to Paris and, despite his non-conformist tendencies, he escaped the guillotine. In fact, the revolutionaries acknowledged his position and during the Terror of 1794, they made him the director of the first school for the deaf. Later, he became a member of the first Ecole Normale, the National Institute, and the Académie Française. He is recognized today as having developed Enlightenment theories of pantomime, "signing,' and a form of "universal language" that later spread to Russia, Spain, and America. This is the first book-length biography of Sicard published in any language since 1873, despite Sicard’s international renown. This thoughtful, engaging work explores French and American sign language and deaf studies set against the backdrop of the French Revolution and Napoleon.


Variation in Indonesian Sign Language

Variation in Indonesian Sign Language

Author: Nick Palfreyman

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1501504827

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This pioneering work on Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) explores the linguistic and social factors that lie behind variation in the grammatical domains of negation and completion. Using a corpus of spontaneous data from signers in the cities of Solo and Makassar, Palfreyman applies an innovative blend of methods from sign language typology and Variationist Sociolinguistics, with findings that have important implications for our understanding of grammaticalisation in sign languages. The book will be of interest to linguists and sociolinguists, including those without prior experience of sign language research, and to all who are curious about the history of Indonesia’s urban sign community. Nick Palfreyman is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS), University of Central Lancashire.


The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia

The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia

Author: Genie Gertz

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2015-07-15

Total Pages: 2321

ISBN-13: 1506300774

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The time has come for a new in-depth encyclopedic collection of entries defining the current state of Deaf Studies at an international level using critical and intersectional lenses encompassing the field. The emergence of Deaf Studies programs at colleges and universities and the broadened knowledge of social sciences (including but not limited to Deaf History, Deaf Culture, Signed Languages, Deaf Bilingual Education, Deaf Art, and more) have served to expand the activities of research, teaching, analysis, and curriculum development. The field has experienced a major shift due to increasing awareness of Deaf Studies research since the mid-1960s. The field has been further influenced by the Deaf community’s movement, resistance, activism and politics worldwide, as well as the impact of technological advances, such as in communications, with cell phones, computers, and other devices. This new Encyclopedia shifts focus away from the medical model that has view deaf individuals as needing to be remedied in order to correct so-called hearing and speaking deficiencies for the sole purpose of assimilation into mainstream society. The members of deaf communities are part of a distinct cultural and linguistic group with a unique, vibrant community, and way of being. As precedence, The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia carves out a new and critical perspective that breathes meaning into organic deaf experiences through a new critical theory lens. Such a focus is novel in that it comes from deaf and hearing allies of the communities where historically, institutions of medicine and disability ride roughshod over authentic experiences.