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Do signers of different signed languages establish and maintain reference the same way? Here we compare how signers of five Western deaf signed languages coordinate fully conventionalized forms with more richly improvised semiotics to identify and talk about referents of varying agency. The five languages (based on a convenience sample) are Auslan, Irish Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language, Norwegian Sign Language, and Swedish Sign Language. Using ten retellings ofFrog, Where Are You?from each language, we analyze tokens of referring expressions with respect to: (a) activation status (new vs. maintained vs. re-introduced); (b) semiotic strategy (e.g., pointing sign, fingerspelling, enactment); and (c) animacy (human vs. animal vs. inanimate object). Statistical analysis reveals many similarities and some differences across the languages. For example, signers of each language typically used conventionalized forms to identify new referents, and less conventional strategies to maintain and reintroduce referents. Differences were mainly observed in relation to the patterning across animacy and activation categories and in the use of fingerspelled words from ambient spoken/written languages. We suggest that doing reference in these signed languages involves both signed language-specific and ecology-specific strategies. The latter may be attributed to the different social and historical trajectories of each language.

Cohn (2016) posits two constraints critical to understanding sequential static images as narrative – the continuity constraint, assuring that elements in one frame are coreferential with elements i...

This paper addresses the tasks of sign segmentation and segment-meaning mapping in the context of sign language (SL) recognition. It aims to give an overview of the linguistic properties of SL, such as coarticulation and simultaneity, which make these tasks complex. A better understanding of SL structure is the necessary ground for the design and development of SL recognition and segmentation methodologies, which are fundamental for machine translation of these languages. Based on this preliminary exploration, a proposal for mapping segments to meaning in the form of an agglomerate of lexical and non-lexical information is introduced. ispartof: pages:98-103 ispartof: https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2021.mtsummit-at4ssl/ pages:98-103 ispartof: 1st International Workshop on Automatic Translation for Signed and Spoken Languages (AT4SSL) location:Virtual status: published

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how the Republic of Ireland’s National Emergency Coordinating Group performed with respect to ensuring access to emergency information for deaf sign language (SL) users over the course of two emergency situations in 2017 and 2018 as a result of storms. The storms book-ended parliamentary and public debate around the recognition of the indigenous SL of Ireland, Irish Sign Language (ISL). The author explores if/how increased political awareness led to better access in 2018, and how access provision maps to best practice guidelines set out by the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) and the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD).Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides empirical insights about the asymmetrical effort that is required of a minority linguistic community, in this instance, community of deaf ISL users and their allies, to secure provision of access to emergency information that is provided as a matter of course to the wider community of hearing English language speakers. The author draws on parliamentary records, social media and print media to document the political, societal and deaf community discourse around ISL recognition and the emergencies.FindingsThe author finds that significant effort was required of deaf people and their allies to secure access to national emergency briefings in 2017, with significant improvement evidenced in 2018 for Storm Emma and the Beast from the East, in the aftermath of the adoption of the ISL Act (December 2017). The author drew on the theory of effortful engaging, which posits that unless we have greater awareness of and pro forma consideration of SLs and deaf people, the burden of work required to ensure appropriate access and participation falls on deaf people.Research limitations/implicationsThere is scope for completing a 360° analysis of stakeholders engaged in the process. Further work should also include interviews with deaf community members and emergency response coordinators.Practical implicationsThis paper identifies implications for emergency coordinating groups: provision of appropriate interpreting must be a pro forma element in the planning for delivery of any emergency information. Broadcasters must be required to ensure that interpreters are visible on screen at all times during live briefings: what is unseen is “unheard” for SL users. Work remains to ensure that deaf people have access to preparatory information in their language, and that they have ease of access to two-way emergency services. Emergency coordinating teams need to integrate the UNCRPD-mapped WASLI-WFD recommendations into their emergency strategy.Social implicationsCommunities depend on information for their survival in times of crisis. Communication requires comprehension and interaction. For SL users, information in an indigenous SL is a lifeline in a time of crisis. This requires emergency response teams to understand that “language” is multi-modal and embed strategies for engaging with deaf communities in all aspects of their processes, with guidance from deaf community leaders and advocates. There is also a need to consider deafblind people and deaf people who have disabilities, who are more vulnerable in crisis situations.Originality/valueThis is the first analysis of state provision of access to information for the Irish deaf community in an emergency setting. It is one of very few empirical analyses of how deaf communities fare in emergency contexts and the first to evaluate a state’s practicevis-à-visUNCRPD-led guidelines on best practice issued by the WASLI/WFD. The socio-political context described represents a unique period where the Irish deaf community and ISL were central to political and media discourse because of the ISL Act and the death of two deaf brothers in tragic circumstances in Autumn 2017.

This paper presents a first snapshot of what we know about how the Irish justice system responds to deaf signers. We look specifically at engagement with An Garda Síochána, the District Court and the Irish Prison Service. We draw on a body of data that stems from (i) the European Commission funded Justisigns Project, (ii) the ‘grey literature’, and (iii) a small study of how equally deaf prisoners access services available to hearing prisoners. We set out to document and benchmark provisions, mapping current practice against the requirements of the European Directives, and reflecting on how these sit with respect to the obligations outlined in the Irish Sign Language Act (2017) and the UNCRPD (2006). We identify a number of gaps arising from systemic issues such as the siloed manual recording of requests for interpreting, quality assurance protocols where interpreters are provided (e.g. the video recording of all parties), and arising from this, the limited opportunities for true evidence-led practice for all those engaged with deaf signers in the Irish justice system.

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) has been widely implemented to support the development of learner autonomy in the teaching and learning of spoken languages, but, until this study, had not been implemented with learners of sign languages. Across 2017–18, we developed and piloted a sample ELP for Irish Sign Language (ISL), which fed into work on the development of an ELP for sign language learners, under the umbrella of the PRO-Sign 2 project (European Centre for Modern Languages). We piloted the ELP with a cohort of ISL learners in the second year of their Bachelor in Deaf Studies, who perform at A2-B1 level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (2001; Leeson et al., 2016). All are learning ISL as a second language (L2), and are acquiring this sign language in what is, for them a new modality (M2). We met students on four occasions across 2017–18 to explore how/if use of the ELP in the ISL classroom supports the development of robust self-evaluation skills, and how the ELP enhances student-reported perception of motivation and autonomy. We report on the process, and present a grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1968), “Bridging the Gap”, drawn from key concerns of these ISL M2L2 learners at A2–B1 level.

Taking a cognitive linguistic approach, this paper explores passive constructions in Irish Sign Language (ISL). Adopting Foley & Van Valin’s (1984) concept of ‘macroroles’, we introduce the prototypical passive construction in ISL, a construction that incorporates several elements including a shift in focus from the Actor to the Undergoer, the recruitment of body partitioning, the use of an empty locus for establishment of an unspecified actor/s, and potentially, a body lean which may be coupled with averted eyegaze. We explore the viewpoint shifts that this construction allows signers, which support the cognitive grammar emphasis on the importance of construal. We also introduce a related category of constructions which recruit the signer’s body as a surrogate for unspecified actors. Unlike the prototypical passive, these constructions are less complex in that they do not recruit body partitioning, body leans or averted eyegaze. However, they are interesting because they seem to demand inferential readings where the surrogate represents external actors or, metonymically, institutions. In particular, we discuss the use of the signer’s body to represent an unspecified Actor and consider the role of embodiment as a lynchpin for understanding how passives operate. We present examples from the Signs of Ireland corpus and from the European Commission funded Medisigns project to illustrate these constructions in ISL.

This article reviews Signed language interpretation and translation research: Selected papers from the First International Symposium 978-1-56368-648-1

In this paper, we report on interview data collected from 14 Deaf leaders across seven countries (Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States) regarding their perspectives on signed language interpreters. Using a semi-structured survey questionnaire, seven interpreting researchers interviewed two Deaf leaders each in their home countries. Following transcription of the data, the researchers conducted a thematic analysis of the comments. Four shared themes emerged in the data, as follows: (a) variable level of confidence in interpreting direction, (b) criteria for selecting interpreters, (c) judging the competence of interpreters, and (d) strategies for working with interpreters. The results suggest that Deaf leaders share similar, but not identical, perspectives about working with interpreters, despite differing conditions that hold regarding how interpreting services are provided in their respective countries. When compared to prior studies of Deaf leaders’ perspectives of interpreters, these data indicate some positive trends in Deaf leaders’ experience with interpreters; however, results also point to a need for further work in creating an atmosphere of trust, enhancing interpreters’ language fluency, and developing mutual collaboration between Deaf leaders and signed language interpreters. De url van de uitgeversversie van het artikel is: http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/084.2017.18.1.5

Little is known about the nature of fingerspelling during sign language interpretation. In this small-scale, exploratory study, we examined the fingerspelling of interpreters working in five different sign languages: American Sign Language (ASL), Australian Sign Language (Auslan), British Sign Language (BSL), Irish Sign Language (ISL), and Italian Sign Language (LIS). Sixteen interpreters were video-recorded as they rendered President Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural address in their country’s sign language. After completing their interpretations, the participants engaged in a retrospective interview about their work. The data were analyzed both quantitatively (for frequency and type of fingerspelling) and qualitatively (for factors influencing fingerspelling). Results indicate that the most fingerspelled items ( n = 137) were produced in the ASL interpretations and the fewest ( n = 18) were produced in the LIS interpretations; variation between the groups was found in lexicalized fingerspelling and the fingerspelling of place names. We suggest that the variation in fingerspelling both within and between groups may be explained by sociolinguistic factors, including interpreters’ language attitudes and perceptions of the deaf audience. This exploratory study provides a first step in investigating the fingerspelling of interpreters in a variety of sign languages.

This chapter explores the use of sign language corpora in L1 and L2/Ln sign language classes. We discuss how corpora have been developed and used by linguists working on spoken and, more recently, ...

There are many issues to consider regarding the acquisition of signed languages, including the critical issue of transmission of language. As we saw in Chapter 3, an estimated 90–95% of deaf children are born into hearing, non-signing families, and as a result, these children may have a haphazard route to sign language acquisition. In addition, an estimated 80% of deaf children born in the developed world receive cochlear implants, and for a variety of reasons, many of these children will receive limited or no access to a sign language during what is considered to be the critical period for language acquisition (Blume, 2010; Humphries et al., 2012).

The term Deaf Studies was coined in 1984 at the University of Bristol after the establishment of the Centre for Deaf Studies in 1978, and the first International Deaf Researchers Workshop was hosted at the same university in 1985 (Marschark & Humphries, 2010). Researchers interested in exploring the language, culture and lives of deaf sign language users from the perspective of a social rather than medical model began to identify as Deaf Studies scholars, and the field focused on the following areas: sign language and sign linguistics; sign language acquisition; the deaf community and deaf culture; cognition, mental health and education; and communication-related technologies (Marschark & Humphries, 2010). Scholars such as Carol Padden and Tom Humphries (1988, 2005) and Harlan Lane (Lane, 1993; Lane, Hoffemister & Bahan, 1996) have trail- blazed explorations of deaf culture and the fact that deaf sign language users form a linguistic and cultural minority group based on shared experiences. Since that time, scholars have branched out and specialised in different aspects of research with deaf people, so that now the term ‘Deaf Studies’ is more synonymous with ‘sociological, anthropological and ethnographic explorations of deaf lives’ (Marschark & Humphries, 2010, p. 2).

In this final content chapter, we discuss the various steps involved in carrying out a research project in applied sign linguistics, focusing on the considerations needed in terms of research design and participant recruitment as well as analysis. Although the approaches utilised in applied sign linguistics research are the same as applied linguistics research in general, we highlight specific issues for consideration when investigating sign language in action. For more guidance on research methods in complementary fields of sign linguistics, Deaf Studies and interpreting studies, we recommend readers refer to books such as Hale and Napier (2013); Orfanidou, Woll and Morgan (2015); Pfau, Steinbach and Woll (2012) and Young and Temple (2014) — see Further Readings at the end of the chapter for more details.

Deaf people across many parts of the world recount stories of ‘surviving’ their education because of the lack of access to the curriculum via a sign language on the one hand, and on the other, because of the intense suppression of sign languages that existed for many decades in many countries. Indeed, in many places, this remains the status quo today. In the quote that opens this chapter, we have access to the views of Helga Stevens, who in 2014 became the first deaf woman to be elected to the European Parliament. She is also a lawyer who has served as Executive Director and, later, President of the European Union of the Deaf (EUD), and as a parliamentarian and a senator in Flanders, Belgium. As a sign language user, it is clear that she is pushing the boundaries for ever-increasing recognition and use of sign languages across the gamut of human interaction. Indeed, she was the central public figure behind the move to have Flemish Sign Language legally recognised in Flanders in 2006 (Wheatley & Pabsch, 2010). In this chapter, our focus is on where and how deaf people use sign languages in everyday life and for what purposes, with concentration in the latter part of the chapter on various institutional contexts where people communicate directly in sign language or indirectly through mediated interpretation.

Previous chapters have discussed sign language and identity, how sign language is learned and taught and how it is used in everyday life. Building on these previous chapters as a foundation, we now move to the exploration of sign language in practice in terms of communication and mediation. This chapter focuses primarily on the work of deaf and hearing applied sign language professionals — interpreters and translators — in various contexts. We begin by exploring ‘natural’ sign language interpreters and translators — those who have grown up in the signing community as sign language brokers — before giving an overview of sign language interpreters and translators as language professionals and discussing typical and changing practices.

Irish Sign Language (ISL), an indigenous language of Ireland, is recognized by the European Union as a natural language. It is a language separate from the other languages used in Ireland, including English, Irish, and, in Northern Ireland, British Sign Language. Some 5,000 Deaf people use ISL. Given the history of suppression of signed languages across what is now the European Union, the average Deaf person leaves school with a reading age of 8.5 to 9 years. It is no surprise, therefore, that Deaf people are the most under-represented of all disadvantaged groups at third level. This poses two challenges: (1) getting Deaf people into third level and (2) presenting education in an accessible form. In the authors' work, they address directly these challenges in an Irish context, and this chapter reports on this work. In Ireland, two Dublin based institutions, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the Institute for Technology Blanchardstown, Dublin (ITB) have partnered to create a unique elearning environment based on MOODLE as the learning management system, in the delivery of Deaf Studies programmes at TCD. This partnership delivers third level programmes to students in a way that resolves problems of time, geography and access, maximizing multi-functional uses of digital assets across our programmes. Students can take courseware synchronously and asynchronously. The authors have built a considerable digital asset and have created a re-architected framework to avail of current best practice in rich digital media over Moodle with learning objects for ISL. Their digital assets include a corpus of ISL, the 'Signs of Ireland Corpus' which is one of the largest, most richly annotated in the world. They have operated online delivery since 2005, hosted by ITB. The hallmark of this project is the delivery of blended learning, maximizing ICT in the teaching and learning of ISL. It is important to note that there are currently no other universities delivering Deaf Studies programmes with this degree of online content internationally. Thus, this programme and its associated research is cutting edge innovation in its philosophy, its rich content and its utilization of rich media. Signed languages, by their nature, are visual-gestural languages, which (unlike spoken languages) do not have a written form. Given this, the online content is required to be multi-modal in nature and the authors utilize rich-media learning objects in their delivery. Within ITB and TCD, the authors have a number of doctoral level studies linked to this project. These focus, at one end of the continuum, on focusing on Deaf culture and is linked to the perspectives on Deaf Studies teaching modules, and at the opposite end of the continuum on describing, for ISL, the phonological-morphological interface in ISL ad which will enrich the digital corpus of ISL. These feed into the online programme. © 2011, IGI Global.

1. Simultaneity in Signed Languages.: A String of Sequentially Organised Issues (by Vermeerbergen, Myriam) 2. Locative Functions of Simultaneous Perspective Constructions in German Sign Language Narratives (by Perniss, Pamela M.) 3. Conceptual Blending and the Windowing of Attention in Simultaneous Constructions in Irish Sign Language (by Leeson, Lorraine) 4. A Cognitive Linguistic View of Simultaneity in Process Signs in French Sign Language (by Risler, Annie) 5. Simultaneity in French Sign Language Discourse (by Sallandre, Marie-Anne) 6. Simultaneous Constructions in Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana) (by Nyst, Victoria) 7. Mouthings and Simultaneity in British Sign Language (by Sutton-Spence, Rachel) 8. The Non-Dominant Hand in a Swedish Sign Language Discourse (by Nilsson, Anna-Lena) 9. A Crosslinguistic Comparison of Buoys. Evidence from American, Norwegian, and Swedish Sign Language (by Liddell, Scott K.) 10. Point Buoys: The Weak Hand as a Point of Reference for Time and Space (by Vogt-Svendsen, Marit) 11. Simultaneous Use of the Two Hands in Jordanian Sign Language (by Hendriks, Bernadet) 12. Sign + Gesture = Speech + Gesture?: Comparing Aspects of Simultaneity in Flemish Sign Language to Instances of Concurrent Speech and Gesture (by Vermeerbergen, Myriam) 13. Acquisition of Simultaneous Constructions by Deaf Children of Hong Kong Sign Language (by Tang, Gladys) 14. Simultaneity in Atypical Signers: Implications for the Structure of Signed Language (by Tyrone, Martha E.) 15. Perspectives on Linearity and Simultaneity (by Woll, Bencie) 16. Index of Names 17. Index of Languages 18. Index of Terms