Bahasa Isyarat di Balik Layar: Inklusivitas Industri Perfilman Bagi Teman Tuli Indonesia

The Deaf Way Les sourds, c'est comme ca, by Yves Delaporte (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 2002, 398 pp. 28 . ISBN 2735109356. ISSN 0758 5888). THIS VOLUME PRESENTS an ethnographic account of signing Deaf community of France, a population traditionally known as sourd-muet, deaf-mute. For reasons that I discuss briefly in this review, use of term muet in France (and corresponding term in United States) has fallen out of popular favor. A reviewer discussing this book in English is immediately faced with question of how to translate title. At first glance, something like The Deaf, That's How It Is might seem appropriate. However, consideration of French Sign Language (LSF) sign that Delaporte translates into French as c'est comme ca suggests an alternate (American) English title. Because of a shared linguistic heritage, same sign with same meaning exists in American Sign Language (ASL). As Delaporte explains (i 13-20), LSF sign originated as third-person possessive pronoun and retained its current meaning as a new sign for pronoun evolved. In its current meaning, it is a tag for descriptions of behavior that French deaf people take as being particularly illustrative of their culture-almost always expressed in terms of its differences from culture of dominant hearing/speaking majority. In this regard, when it follows sign for it might be translated as the deaf, it's their thing. In ASL, sign retains its function as possessive pronoun as well as meaning just described in FSL, and whole phrase, beginning with sign for has been translated into English as the deaf English name and ASL sign phrase for two international festivals celebrating arts and culture of world Deaf community, sponsored by Gallaudet University. What is significant about all of this is self-definition of Deaf community according to its alterity, or otherness-its fundamental separation from hearing population within which it is immersed. The central fact of life for deaf people in industrial societies, especially people born deaf, is difficulty posed by need to communicate with hearing people. For deaf people of France and rest of Europe and perhaps to a lesser extent those of North America, this problem has been compounded since i88os by refusal of educational establishment to allow them to be educated in their own natural signed languages, accompanied by attempts to prevent use of these languages even outside classroom. DeIaporte reveals complicity of medical establishment in denial of deafness and mutism-defining them as medical problems to be overcome by prosthesis and rigid oral training, with parents avoiding use of sign language at all costs. The typical result has been a more or less complete failure of formal educational process. These restrictions are only now being eased in much of Western world, to be replaced by a new form of prosthesis, cochlear implant, seen by signing Deaf communities as a new threat to their viability. The case of cochlear implants is particularly revealing of central difference between deaf and all other cultural and linguistic groups. Less than 10 percent of deaf children have deaf parents, and perhaps 90 percent of children of deaf adults are hearing. Thus, medical and educational destinies of most deaf children are controlled by hearing parents. The language and culture, in general, are not transmitted in usual way, from parents to their children. Instead, these have been transmitted to signing deaf in educational establishments, prototypically residential schools for deaf children, although tiny minority of deaf people who come from multigenerational deaf families plays a disproportionate role in this process. The histories of Deaf communities, and especially French Deaf community, are to a great extent histories of great residential schools (see Lane 1984; Van Cleve and Crouch 1989). …

Previous articleNext article No AccessBooksThe Deaf Way Les sourds, c’est comme ça. By Yves Delaporte. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2002. 398 pp.David F. ArmstrongDavid F. ArmstrongSign Language Studies, Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002, U.S.A. ([email protected]) 27 v 04 Search for more articles by this author Sign Language Studies, Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002, U.S.A. ([email protected]) 27 v 04PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 45, Number 5December 2004 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/425638 Views: 14Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

IntroductionNew digital technologies hold promise for equalising access to information and communication for the Deaf community. SMS technology, for example, has helped to equalise deaf peoples’ access to information and made it easier to communicate with both deaf and hearing people (Tane Akamatsu et al.; Power and Power; Power, Power, and Horstmanshof; Valentine and Skelton, "Changing", "Umbilical"; Harper). A wealth of anecdotal evidence and some recent academic work suggests that new media technology is also reshaping deaf peoples’ sense of local and global community (Breivik "Deaf"; Breivik, Deaf; Brueggeman). One focus of research on new media technologies has been on technologies used for point to point communication, including communication (and interpretation) via video (Tane Akamatsu et al.; Power and Power; Power, Power, and Horstmanshof). Another has been the use of multimedia technologies in formal educational setting for pedagogical purposes, particularly English language literacy (e.g. Marshall Gentry et al.; Tane Akamatsu et al.; Vogel et al.). An emphasis on the role of multimedia in deaf education is understandable, considering the on-going highly politicised contest over whether to educate young deaf people in a bilingual environment using a signed language (Swanwick & Gregory). However, the increasing significance of social and participatory media in the leisure time of Westerners suggests that such uses of Web 2.0 are also worth exploring. There have begun to be some academic accounts of the enthusiastic adoption of vlogging by sign language users (e.g. Leigh; Cavander and Ladner) and this paper seeks to add to this important work. Web 2.0 has been defined by its ability to, in Denise Woods’ word, “harness collective intelligence” (19.2) by providing opportunities for users to make, adapt, “mash up” and share text, photos and video. As well as its well-documented participatory possibilities (Bruns), its re-emphasis on visual (as opposed to textual) communication is of particular interest for Deaf communities. It has been suggested that deaf people are a ‘visual variety of the human race’ (Bahan), and the visually rich presents new opportunities for visually rich forms of communication, most importantly via signed languages. The central importance of signed languages for Deaf identity suggests that the visual aspects of interactive multimedia might offer possibilities of maintenance, enhancement and shifts in those identities (Hyde, Power and Lloyd). At the same time, the visual aspects of the Web 2.0 are often audio-visual, such that the increasingly rich resources of the net offer potential barriers as well as routes to inclusion and community (see Woods; Ellis; Cavander and Ladner). In particular, lack of captioning or use of Auslan in video resources emerges as a key limit to the accessibility of the visual Web to deaf users (Cahill and Hollier). In this paper we ask to what extent contemporary digital media might create moments of permeability in what Krentz has called “the hearing line, that invisible boundary separating deaf and hearing people”( 2)”. To provide tentative answers to these questions, this paper will explore the use of participatory digital media by a group of young Deaf people taking part in a small-scale digital moviemaking project in Sydney in 2009. The ProjectAs a starting point, the interdisciplinary research team conducted a video-making course for young deaf sign language users within the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University. The research team was comprised of one deaf and four hearing researchers, with expertise in media and cultural studies, information technology, sign language linguistics/ deaf studies, and signed language interpreting. The course was advertised through the newsletter of partner organization the NSW Deaf Society, via a Sydney bilingual deaf school and through the dense electronic networks of Australian deaf people. The course attracted fourteen participants from NSW, Western Australia and Queensland ranging in age from 10 to 18. Twelve of the participants were male, and two female. While there was no aspiration to gather a representative group of young people, it is worth noting there was some diversity within the group: for example, one participant was a wheelchair user while another had in recent years moved to Sydney from Africa and had learned Auslan relatively recently. Students were taught a variety of storytelling techniques and video-making skills, and set loose in groups to devise, shoot and edit a number of short films. The results were shared amongst the class, posted on a private YouTube channel and made into a DVD which was distributed to participants.The classes were largely taught in Auslan by a deaf teacher, although two sessions were taught by (non-deaf) members of Macquarie faculty, including an AFI award winning director. Those sessions were interpreted into Auslan by a sign language interpreter. Participants were then allowed free creative time to shoot video in locations of their choice on campus, or to edit their footage in the computer lab. Formal teaching sessions lasted half of each day – in the afternoons, participants were free to use the facilities or participate in a range of structured activities. Participants were also interviewed in groups, and individually, and their participation in the project was observed by researchers. Our research interest was in what deaf young people would choose to do with Web 2.0 technologies, and most particularly the visually rich elements of participatory and social media, in a relatively unstructured environment. Importantly, our focus was not on evaluating the effectiveness of multimedia for teaching deaf young people, or the level of literacy deployed by deaf young people in using the applications. Rather we were interested to discover the kinds of stories participants chose to tell, the ways they used Web 2.0 applications and the modalities of communication they chose to use. Given that Auslan was the language of instruction of the course, would participants draw on the tradition of deaf jokes and storytelling and narrate stories to camera in Auslan? Would they use the format of the “mash-up”, drawing on found footage or photographs? Would they make more filmic movies using Auslan dialogue? How would they use captions and text in their movies: as subtitles for Auslan dialogue? As an alternative to signing? Or not at all? Our observations from the project point to the great significance of the visual dimensions of Web 2.0 for the deaf young people who participated in the project. Initially, this was evident in the kind of movies students chose to make. Only one group – three young people in their late teens which included both of the young women in the class - chose to make a dialogue heavy movie, a spoof of Charlie’s Angels, entitled Deaf Angels. This movie included long scenes of the Angels using Auslan to chat together, receiving instruction from “Charlie” in sign language via videophone and recruiting “extras”, again using Auslan, to sign a petition for Auslan to be made an official Australian language. In follow up interviews, one of the students involved in making this film commented “my clip is about making a political statement, while the other [students in the class] made theirs just for fun”. The next group of (three) films, all with the involvement of the youngest class member, included signed storytelling of a sort readily recognisable from signed videos on-line: direct address to camera, with the teller narrating but also taking on the roles of characters and presenting their dialogue directly via the sign language convention of “role shift” - also referred to as constructed action and constructed dialogue (Metzger). One of these movies was an interesting hybrid. The first half of the four minute film had two young actors staging a hold-up at a vending machine, with a subsequent chase and fight scene. Like most of the films made by participants in the class, it included only one line of signed dialogue, with the rest of the narrative told visually through action. However, at the end of the action sequence, with the victim safely dead, the narrative was then retold by one of the performers within a signed story, using conventions typically observed in signed storytelling - such as role shift, characterisation and spatial mapping (Mather & Winston; Rayman; Wilson).The remaining films similarly drew on action and horror genres with copious use of chase and fight scenes and melodramatic and sometimes quite beautiful climactic death tableaux. The movies included a story about revenging the death of a brother; a story about escaping from jail; a short story about a hippo eating a vet; a similar short comprised of stills showing a sequence of executions in the computer lab; and a ghost story. Notably, most of these movies contained very little dialogue – with only one or two lines of signed dialogue in each four to five minute video (with the exception of the gun handshape used in context to represent the object liberally throughout most films). The kinds of movies made by this limited group of people on this one occasion are suggestive. While participants drew on a number of genres and communication strategies in their film making, the researchers were surprised at how few of the movies drew on traditions of signed storytelling or jokes– particularly since the course was targeted at deaf sign language users and promoted as presented in Auslan. Consequently, our group of students were largely drawn from the small number of deaf schools in which Auslan is the main language of instruction – an exceptional circumstance in an Australian setting in which most deaf young people attend mainstream schools (Byrnes et al.; Power and Hyde). Looking across the Hearing LineWe can make sense of the creative cho

Cochlear Implants in Children: Ethics and vices by John B. Christia and Irene W. Leigh. (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2002, 340 pp., casebound, $49.95) LIKE MANY readers of this journal, I have followed the cochlear implant controversy with a cautious and curious stance, not wanting to take sides with any level of passion. As an educator, I would welcome any technological advance that might enhance cognitive and/or linguistic development in deaf children. Months ago, I saw a segment on television about a young deaf girl who received an implant. I watched as she was playing in the yard and heard an airplane flying overhead. The thought that she was made aware of something in the environment and this may have stimulated her thinking about the world around her was quickly lost when the medical doctor and interviewer focused on how long it would be before the young girl would speak like her hearing peers. Wrong focus, I thought. Before advocating the use of such technology on a large-scale basis, I would want to see some research results showing its potential for improving the quality of life. Deaf education has a long history of armchair philosophizing about technology. Closed and open captions, the TTY, and now the Internet, for example, have all been touted in books, magazines, and journals in terms of their potential effects on learning. Yet, there is no great body of research that provides evidence of benefits beyond increased access to information for deaf and hard of hearing people. A glimpse into history also provides some understanding of why there is so much emotion attached to technological advances. Advances in voice telephony led to a ninety-year delay in access to the telephone for deaf people. Advances in adding the sound track to silent movies led to more than forty years of lost access to films. For hundreds of years, deaf people, viewed as disabled, have been treated with chemical and electrical cures, sent up for airplane dives, and subjected to a multitude of other medical fixes. Emotions have long been a part of Deaf education history. The Deaf community has long included many different types of people, and we have experienced technology's impact in different ways. The TTY, for example, eliminated the need for face-to-face communication, saving deaf people long drives to a Deaf club or to the homes of family members and friends just for personal communication. In turn, instant messaging and the Internet may be having an impact on the need for the TTY. Regardless, the TTY would never have come about without collaboration between signing and nonsigning deaf people in the National Association of the Deaf and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf (through the organization now known as Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc., or TDI). All the while, American Sign Language (ASL) has become recognized as a true language and is used increasingly by many deaf and hearing people. A number of universities and state education departments recognize ASL as a foreign language. As a deaf person myself, I have deaf friends who have had a range of experiences with cochlear implants. One just received an implant at the age of fifty-six and is delighted with it. So are two friends who are in their thirties. Another received hers fifteen years ago and blames the implant for migraines and frequent nausea. A fourth friend had several implants over the past ten years and does not use an implant now. It only makes me curious. I have wondered also about the range of experiences younger deaf children have with implants. While at a conference at James Madison University last fall I dropped in at the end of a presentation by a cochlear implant expert and was delighted to see him advocating continued use of sign language with implanted children. Yet I also read an article about a school established for implanted children that would not allow the use of sign language. …

Among the Al-Sayyid Arab-Bedouin, the use of an indigenous sign language is widespread and provides the foundation of a signing community shared by hearing and deaf people. Cases with comparable high incidences of deafness have in recent years stimulated debates in diverse academic disciplines. Lacking an accurate term, they are regularly referred to as “Martha's Vineyard situations” and have often been oversimplified and romanticized. This article provides an in-depth analysis of a Bedouin shared-signing community and advocates closer investigation of both facilitating and disabling social practices, which would also allow better examination of comparable cases. This article concentrates on the shared use of sign language, the asymmetry it entails, and the manifold forms of translation and mediation that take place. Whereas most hearing Al-Sayyid persons have access to both spoken and signed modes of communication, deaf people's communication remains largely restricted to the signed mode (hence, the asymmetry). However, in contrast to the common reduction of deafness to the disabling absence of speech or need for translation, deaf people's need for translation is not unusual among the Al-Sayyid; local communication patterns involve many different forms of translation between different spoken languages, written languages, discourses, and social domains. Additionally, ample translators are readily available. Moreover, the common familiarity with deaf people and sign language facilitates the production and sharing of a unique experiential knowledge, grounded in daily experiences and practices. In this context, deafness is not easily subjugated to its medical model. However, encounters with the medical and educational establishment present a series of challenges that may severely exacerbate deaf people's structure of opportunities. Finally, I consider the attempts made so far to classify comparable cases; unfortunately, these mostly attempt to classify deaf communities rather than the broader category of signing communities. I thus maintain that the term “shared signing community” most accurately captures what these cases have in common: the pervasive use of signing by both hearing and deaf.

This study analyzes the use of language in the Ngeri-Ngeri Sedap film with the aim of revealing the patterns of language use that occur in the film, especially in terms of language variation, code-switching, and code-mixing, and how social factors influence the use of language in communication between characters. The methods used in this study are the free listening technique and the note-taking technique. The free listening technique is used to observe the use of language in the film without direct interaction with the speaker, while the note-taking technique is used to document relevant findings in the dialogue and conversation between characters. The results of the study show that the Ngeri-Ngeri Sedap film uses a mixture of Indonesian, Batak, and a little Sundanese and Javanese. The use of this language functions as a communication strategy that reflects cultural identity and strengthens the emotional aspect in the interaction between characters. In addition, the code-switching and code-mixing that occur in the conversation between characters illustrate the social dynamics and the reality of communication in a multilingual society. Thus, the use of language in this film not only acts as a means of communication, but also as a medium to convey cultural messages and social values inherent in the lives of the Batak people..

I AM VERY PLEASED to have the opportunity to address you concerning the ethical issues involved in genetic counseling and deafness. I am especially happy to be able to speak to such a distinguished group because I probably bring a somewhat different perspective to the subject of deafness than the one you are used to. It is probably best if I begin by briefly describing that perspective. For about eighteen years I have taught a course on the psychology of deafness. One of the first things we discuss in the class is the difference between viewing deafness as a pathology that should be cured or prevented and viewing it as a human condition to be understood. I call these two perspectives the medical and cultural points of view. Individuals from the two groups agree on audiological definitions but disagree on the emphasis that should be given to prevention and cure vs. the emphasis that should be given to social and rehabilitative services. I adhere to the social or cultural point of view. What I mean by this is that I personally and many of the people I know well have accepted the fact that deafness is one aspect of my individuality. I do not spend any time or energy thinking about curing my deafness or restoring my hearing, but I do spend substantial time and energy trying to improve the quality of life for all people who are deaf. For some reason, people who hear have a very difficult time understanding this concept. you will permit me to digress for a moment, I will give you an example. I was interviewed by Ms. Meredith Vieira for the television show 60 Minutes. During the interview, she asked me this question: If there was a pill that you could take and you would wake up with normal hearing, would you take it? I told her that her question upset me. I told her that it was something I spent virtually no time at all thinking about, and I asked her if she would ask me the same question about a white pill if I were a black man. Then I asked if, as a woman, she would take a man pill. Our conversation continued long after the videotaping was done, and we have had several subsequent conversations. But she never understood. She still does not. She still thinks only from her own frame of reference and imagines that not hearing would be a terrible thing. Deafness is not simply the opposite of hearing. It is much more than that, and those of us who live and work and play and lead full lives as deaf people try very hard to communicate this fact. As you can see, this is an emotional issue for me. It is a much more emotional issue for many other deaf people. Is that relevant here? Yes, I believe it is, because the genetic study of deafness and genetic counseling have a great deal of significance for the deaf community generally. As Dr. Christiansen pointed out, many deaf people, particularly those who consider themselves members of the deaf community, do not consider themselves to be defective; rather, they consider themselves to be different-normal but different. In particular, this difference has a cultural or sociological basis and is expressed most saliently in the use of sign language. deaf people are not defective or dysfunctional, then, at least in their own eyes, it follows that they would be suspicious of attempts to eradicate deafness. Beginning with the work of Alexander Graham Bell in the late nineteenth century, deaf people have been frequent and prominent targets of the eugenics movement. It is not widely known by the general public that, in addition to his work as an inventor, Bell was also a leading figure in the education of the deaf in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In order to put this issue into context, it is important to consider Bell and the educational and social programs he promoted. As Dr. Christiansen indicated, the primary characteristic identifying a member of the deaf community, as opposed to a hearing-impaired person, is the use of sign language. …

I AM VERY PLEASED to have the opportunity to address you concerning the ethical issues involved in genetic counseling and deafness. I am especially happy to be able to speak to such a distinguished group because I probably bring a somewhat different perspective to the subject of deafness than the one you are used to. It is probably best if I begin by briefly describing that perspective. For about eighteen years I have taught a course on the psychology of deafness. One of the first things we discuss in the class is the difference between viewing deafness as a pathology that should be cured or prevented and viewing it as a human condition to be understood. I call these two perspectives the medical and cultural points of view. Individuals from the two groups agree on audiological definitions but disagree on the emphasis that should be given to prevention and cure vs. the emphasis that should be given to social and rehabilitative services. I adhere to the social or cultural point of view. What I mean by this is that I personally and many of the people I know well have accepted the fact that deafness is one aspect of my individuality. I do not spend any time or energy thinking about curing my deafness or restoring my hearing, but I do spend substantial time and energy trying to improve the quality of life for all people who are deaf. For some reason, people who hear have a very difficult time understanding this concept. you will permit me to digress for a moment, I will give you an example. I was interviewed by Ms. Meredith Vieira for the television show 60 Minutes. During the interview, she asked me this question: If there was a pill that you could take and you would wake up with normal hearing, would you take it? I told her that her question upset me. I told her that it was something I spent virtually no time at all thinking about, and I asked her if she would ask me the same question about a white pill if I were a black man. Then I asked if, as a woman, she would take a man pill. Our conversation continued long after the videotaping was done, and we have had several subsequent conversations. But she never understood. She still does not. She still thinks only from her own frame of reference and imagines that not hearing would be a terrible thing. Deafness is not simply the opposite of hearing. It is much more than that, and those of us who live and work and play and lead full lives as deaf people try very hard to communicate this fact. As you can see, this is an emotional issue for me. It is a much more emotional issue for many other deaf people. Is that relevant here? Yes, I believe it is, because the genetic study of deafness and genetic counseling have a great deal of significance for the deaf community generally. As Dr. Christiansen pointed out, many deaf people, particularly those who consider themselves members of the deaf community, do not consider themselves to be defective; rather, they consider themselves to be different-normal but different. In particular, this difference has a cultural or sociological basis and is expressed most saliently in the use of sign language. deaf people are not defective or dysfunctional, then, at least in their own eyes, it follows that they would be suspicious of attempts to eradicate deafness. Beginning with the work of Alexander Graham Bell in the late nineteenth century, deaf people have been frequent and prominent targets of the eugenics movement. It is not widely known by the general public that, in addition to his work as an inventor, Bell was also a leading figure in the education of the deaf in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In order to put this issue into context, it is important to consider Bell and the educational and social programs he promoted. As Dr. Christiansen indicated, the primary characteristic identifying a member of the deaf community, as opposed to a hearing-impaired person, is the use of sign language. …

PurposePeople with severe or profound hearing loss face daily communication problems mainly due to the language barrier between themselves and the hearing community. Their hearing deficiency, as well as their use of sign language, often makes it difficult for them to use and understand spoken language. Cyprus is amongst the top 5 European countries with a relatively high proportion of registered deaf people (0.12 per cent of the population: GUL, 2010). However, lack of technological and financial support to the Deaf Community of Cyprus leaves the Cypriot deaf people unsupported and marginalised. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThis study implemented user-centred design methods to explore the communication needs and requirements of Cypriot deaf people and develop a functional prototype of a mobile app to help them to communicate more effectively with hearing people. A total of 76 deaf adults were involved in various stages of the research. This paper presents the participatory design activities (N=8) and results of usability testing (N=8).FindingsThe study found that users were completely satisfied with the mobile app and, in particular, they liked the use of Cypriot Sign Language (CSL) videos of a real person interpreting hearing people’s speech in real time and the custom onscreen keyboard to allow faster selection of text input.Originality/valueDespite advances in communication aid technologies, there is currently no technology available that supports CSL or real-time speech to sign language conversion for the deaf people of Cyprus.

Reviewed by: The Sociolinguistics of Ethiopian Sign Language: A Study of Language Use and Attitudes by Eyasu Hailu Tamene Robert Bayley (bio) The Sociolinguistics of Ethiopian Sign Language: A Study of Language Use and Attitudes by Eyasu Hailu Tamene (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2017, 175 pp., Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities Series 23, hardbound, $60.00. ISBN 978-1-944838-06-5) This volume is a welcome addition to the growing number of studies of signing communities around the world (e.g., Cooper and Rashid 2015; McCaskill et al. 2011; Pfau, Steinbach, and Woll 2012; Schembri and Lucas 2015). As is fitting for a pioneering study of Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL), Tamene focuses on dimensions of language use, language attitudes, and services available to Deaf people throughout the country rather than on the detailed linguistic analysis that has characterized other recent studies of better known sign languages. The result is a volume that provides an overview of the linguistic resources available to Deaf people in Ethiopia and a foundation for future technical work on the linguistics of EthSL, the most commonly used sign language in the country. After a brief introductory chapter providing an overview of the structure of the book, chapter 2 summarizes sign language use and deaf education in Ethiopia. EthSL has a substantial number of users, although estimates vary widely, ranging from 250,000 (according to the World Federation of the Deaf) to 1,000,000 (according to the Ethiopian National Association of the Deaf; Simons and Fennig 2018). According to Tamene, the Ethiopian Deaf community was isolated and neglected until the arrival of missionaries from Sweden and the United States in the 1950s. In addition to preaching, the missionaries founded schools for the deaf, with the first school established in 1963. As a consequence, EthSL exhibits considerable influence from American [End Page 298] Sign Language (ASL). However, the author notes that despite the foreign influence, EthSL originated in Ethiopia. Tamene comments that older Deaf people in Addis Ababa recall regular social gatherings in Piassa, the city’s old town. Currently, although it is not one of the country’s officially recognized languages, EthSL is used as a medium of instruction in schools, in TV programs, and interpreting in parliament. The author notes that there are 290 special classes and twelve schools for Deaf children that use EthSL, located in nine different regions. In addition, although the language has not been as well studied as many of the spoken languages of the country, there is a highly productive program of research in the EthSL and Deaf Cultural Program at Addis Ababa University, with fifty bachelor’s theses completed on a variety of topics. Finally, a number of primers and dictionaries documenting the language have appeared. In the remainder of chapter 2, Tamene discusses efforts at standardization, offers an overview of EthSL use in a variety of domains, and discusses attitudes toward the language held by Deaf people themselves, as well as parents and the broader community. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a crucial question: Is EthSL one language or many? Tamene provides a preliminary analysis of data from four regions that suggest that, despite variation, EthSL is essentially one language. However, he acknowledges that the type of detailed study necessary to establish the parameters of variation has yet to be done. In chapter 3, Tamene outlines the methods of the current study. Overall, participant selection followed the methods used by Lucas, Bayley, and Valli (2001). Participants were recruited in eleven sites and included 110 Deaf signers as well as twenty-two teachers and twenty-two parents. In addition to gathering demographic data, researchers conducted interviews dealing with language use in a wide range of domains, including work, school, family, and so forth, as well as information about participants’ language skills in EthSL and spoken languages. The profiles of the different sites, as well as the discussion of the interview protocols, chapter are particularly valuable. Chapter 4 presents the results of Tamene’s study, including tables summarizing the responses to different interview topics, divided by responses from Deaf participants, parents, and students. Interestingly, the majority of participants who became deaf before the age of five...

Inclusive Education—A Sustainable Approach? Markku Jokinen This article is excerpted from Jokinen, M. (2016). Inclusive education—A sustainable approach? In G. A. M. De Clerck & P. V. Paul (Eds.), Sign language, sustainable development, and equal opportunities (pp. 105–117). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Full and Equal Participation Through Learning Life and Social Skills Full participation is one of the general principles in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) for enabling the enjoyment of human rights. This concept cuts across all issues in the Convention, and is a specific obligation of states/parties that have ratified the Convention document. Other general principles relevant to the education of deaf persons are respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for their right to preserve their identities. The latter is related to the linguistic and cultural identity of the deaf community stated in Articles 24(2)(b) and 30(4). Both principles are essential to full enjoyment of human rights by deaf students in educational contexts. According to Article 24, on education, learning life and social development skills facilitates full and equal participation of persons with disabilities. With respect to deaf students, facilitating the learning of a sign language, promoting the linguistic identity of the deaf community, and ensuring that education is delivered in the most appropriate languages are the measures adopted by the ratified states to enable full and equal participation. The states must also take appropriate measures to employ teachers who are qualified, at least in the use of a sign language. These measures reflect culture-sensitive approaches to guiding students in learning skills that match their personalities, needs, and ways to live as deaf persons. This is part of the CRPD's recognition of the diversity of persons with disabilities and that these individuals can and do contribute to human, social, and economic development. Using and learning sign language with and from proficient teachers provides a foundation for balanced personal, academic, and social development. Enabling deaf students to participate fully in all learning processes and respecting their linguistic and cultural identities require that educators and professionals examine possible factors in successful inclusive education based on needs of deaf students. Deaf People: A Linguistic and Cultural Group Article 24 is connected to Article 2 regarding definitions of the language and communication used in the CRPD. It is the first treaty to consider sign languages as equal to spoken languages, and thus recognizes sign languages as languages in their own right. Another important link is to Article 9, on accessibility, where it is stated that states/parties shall take measures to provide professional sign language interpreters. [End Page 70] Article 21, on freedom of expression and opinion and access to information, includes recognizing and promoting the use of sign languages. Article 30, on participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport, includes the state's obligation to recognize and support the specific cultural and linguistic identity of persons with disabilities, including sign languages and deaf culture. A perspective on deaf people as a linguistic and cultural group is strengthened through these articles (CRPD, n.d.; Kauppinen & Jokinen, 2014). This perspective should be kept in mind when one develops programs for the education of deaf people that strengthen their educational rights. There is a traditional position that only individual rights are recognized in international law, whereas linguistic rights have been perceived as having a more collective nature. For example, the development of legally binding treaties such as the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities has shown a shift toward acceptance in political and legal terms of the linguistic rights (of minorities) to education (de Varennes, cited in Phillipson, 2000). Further in-depth analysis of the minority and human rights status of deaf people from the linguistic and cultural rights perspective in relation to the CRPD and other treaties is needed to gain a better understanding of what the linguistic and cultural rights of deaf students mean in an educational context. The World Federation of the Deaf used the linguistic rights perspective and arguments during negotiations of the...

Should All Deaf Children Learn Sign Language?

This article explores the politics of inclusion and exclusion of the Deaf community in Zimbabwe's health sector, focusing on the marginalisation of Sign Language. It examines the use of Sign Language in major referral hospitals such as Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe, and the attitudes of nurses and doctors towards its use. The research aims to understand the lack of resources and programmes for the deaf community, as medical practitioners primarily use spoken language for communication. Data for the study were collected through questionnaires directed to the administration, doctors, nurses and Deaf patients at Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe Hospitals, and from two bus termini where the deaf are concentrated. Supplementary data were collected through focus group discussions and interviews with the Deaf. Data were presented and analysed using a thematic approach. The findings of the study are that there is no defined use and awareness of Sign Language in hospitals, and where there is awareness; the interventions have been weak, thereby failing to ameliorate communication challenges in healthcare settings.

This study explored how sign language use and social connectedness influenced the life satisfaction of twelve British Deaf community members (n = 12, m = 2, f = 10, aged 23-79). During in-person and remote interviews, participants compared experiences of sign language use and social connectedness with experiences of spoken language and exclusion. Reflexive thematic analysis generated two main themes. (1) Gaining Deafness: which explored how sign language use and social connectedness created positive perceptions of deafness, enabling authenticity and agency. (2) Empowering Deaf pride: which examined how feeling connected to sign language and Deaf culture produced Deaf pride and self-advocacy, empowering participants. These findings support the implementation of sign language in early education for all children. The findings call for the social reconstruction of deafness, and for deaf-led development of inclusive definitions and terminology. This research provides new qualitative evidence on how sign language and Deaf cultural connectedness enhance the life satisfaction of Deaf adults.

Not a disability