In 1988, members of the American deaf community protested the appointment of a hearing person as the president of Gallaudet University, the world's only university for deaf and hard of hearing students. After a week of protest, the university's board of trustees capitulated and bowed to all the protester's demands. As the protesters engaged in a…

This article follows the often difficult educational path of deaf children in Tanzania, from homes with very little communication to cherished times at deaf (units of) primary schools, through secondary school, which had to be "endured" only, up to work life. It describes challenges and coping strategies, many of which are connected to…

In this article, we examine various strategies used to express cardinal numbers in Yucatec Maya Sign Languages (YMSLs) from three historically unrelated communities in Yucatán, Mexico: Chicán, Nohkop, and Cepeda Peraza. Our findings describe some numeral strategies, which remained unattested in previous accounts, and demonstrate that YMSL numerals…

This article explores the morphological process of numeral incorporation in Japanese Sign Language. Numeral incorporation is defined and the available research on numeral incorporation in signed language is discussed. The numeral signs in Japanese Sign Language are then introduced and followed by an explanation of the numeral morphemes which are…

This article describes and analyses the pathway to the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill and the strategies used to reach it. Data collection has been done by means of interviews with key players, analysis of official documents, and participant observation. The article discusses the bill in relation to the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005…

This paper first reviews the fairly established ways of collecting sign language data. It then discusses the new technologies available and their impact on sign language research, both in terms of how data is collected and what new kinds of data are emerging as a result of technology. New data collection methods and new kinds of data are…

This article traces the origins of Hong Kong Sign Language (hereafter HKSL) and its subsequent development in relation to the establishment of Deaf education in Hong Kong after World War II. We begin with a detailed description of the history of Deaf education with a particular focus on the role of sign language in such development. We then…

The article is written in the tradition of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's theory of basic color terms. According to this theory there is a universal inventory of eleven basic color categories from which the basic color terms of any given language are always drawn. The number of basic color terms varies from 2 to 11 and in a language having a fully…

Technological and language innovation often flow in concert with one another. Casual observation by researchers has shown that electronic communication memes, in the form of abbreviations, have found their way into spoken English. This study focuses on the current use of electronic modes of communication, such as cell smartphones, and e-mail, and…

The fact that language teaching can be operationalized through computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has directed researchers' attention to the learning task, which, in this case, is considered to be the unit that demands analysis of the communicative processes in which the learner is involved while working with CALL. Research focuses on…

Visual language mediation by hearing offspring was studied in deaf-parented families as part of a larger program of cross-sectional descriptive research into aspects of deaf parents' child-rearing performance. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 profoundly deaf adults and the oldest hearing school-aged offspring in the home. (12…

This article presents the findings of the first linguistic analysis of sign language interpreting carried out in Australia. A study was conducted on 10 Australian Sign Language/English interpreters to determine the rate and occurrence of interpreting omissions and the interpreters' level of metalinguistic awareness in relation to their production…

Twenty deaf adults were interviewed about their use of name signs. Results revealed underlying cultural values expressed in name signs, and also provided practical information about the making and bestowing of name signs, changing one's name sign, and evolution in the name sign system. (Author/CB)

Presents data on Pakistan Sign Language collected during videotaped interviews with informants. Questions whether nonmanual components of a sign should be included among the language parameters and considered equivalent to the phonemes of spoken languages. (seven references) (Author/CK)

This article describes efforts at the University of California, San Diego in the Education Studies Program to develop and field-test a teacher preparation program that combines best practices in bilingual education and deaf education. The training curriculum designed for this program relies on research that finds a correlation between ASL fluency…