Signed languages exploit the visual/gestural modality to create iconic expression across a wide range of basic conceptual structures in which the phonetic resources of the language are built up into an analogue of a mental image (Taub, 2001). Previously, we demonstrated a processing advantage when iconic properties of signs were made salient in a…

Literatures is both a rich resource and a blunt instrument in conveying the complexities of identity, in particular, the elusive "deaf identity". The rarity of the fully realized deaf person in memoir and fiction shapes the way readers regard deaf people and throws up fresh challenges in redesigning stories of deafness free of the taint of…

In Brazil, recent regulations require changes in private and public health systems to make special services available to deaf patients. In the present article, the researchers analyze the perceptions of 25 sign language-using patients regarding this assistance. The researchers found communication difficulties between these patients and health…

One never gets a second chance to make a first impression. During these tough economic times it's important to promote the school library media center's program and collection as integral parts of the learning process. The changing landscape of librarianship demands a wide selection of approaches to promote library resources. Ideas, strategies,…

This article discusses the idea of linguistic landscape and describes a small-scale research project undertaken in a local EFL community in Mexico using public signs to analyse the social meanings of English. The author presents a framework that distinguishes between intercultural and intracultural uses, as well as iconic and innovative uses of…

There is increasing support for using media products as early intervention tools for deaf children. Because deaf children are visual learners, products such as interactive DVDs and videos can be an effective supplement in the teaching of ASL and literacy skills to deaf children. While adult mediation during literacy activities has been shown to…

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we neuroimaged deaf adults as they performed two linguistic tasks with sentences in American Sign Language, grammatical judgment and phonemic-hand judgment. Participants' age-onset of sign language acquisition ranged from birth to 14 years; length of sign language experience was substantial and…

Deaf bilinguals for whom American Sign Language (ASL) is the first language and English is the second language judged the semantic relatedness of word pairs in English. Critically, a subset of both the semantically related and unrelated word pairs were selected such that the translations of the two English words also had related forms in ASL. Word…

This article examines the linguistic landscape (LL) of seven villages above the Arctic Circle, in the region called North Calotte. The area forms a complex nexus of contested and changing multilingualism, particularly as regards to endangered indigenous Sami languages and Kven and Meankieli minority languages. Viewing LL as a discursively…

Learners' ability to recognize linguistic contrasts in American Sign Language (ASL) was investigated using a paired-comparison discrimination task. Minimal pairs containing contrasts in five linguistic categories (i.e., the formational parameters of movement, handshape, orientation, and location in ASL phonology, and a category comprised of…

For hearing parents, receiving a hearing loss diagnosis for their child can be a shocking event. For some parents, the diagnosis is the fulfillment of a hunch; confirmation of the suspected, but still scary verdict. Recent research finds that the period directly after hearing loss diagnosis is the most stressful and burdensome for parents,…

This article results from a case study with exploratory traits where the implementation of a graduate degree in Portuguese Sign Language at the Portuguese Catholic University is analysed. With this study we intend to determine whether distance learning models using blended learning strategies are adequate for deaf students at the university level.…

Bilinguals sometimes outperform age-matched monolinguals on non-language tasks involving cognitive control. But the bilingual advantage is not consistently found in every experiment and may reflect specific attributes of the bilinguals tested. The goal of this dissertation was to determine if the way in which bilinguals use language, specifically…

Stokoe begins his seminal article in semantic phonology with complaints about the complexities of the sign phonologies that were emerging at the time. His insight was not just that phonology is somehow meaningful. Rather, semantic phonology suggests that language structures are built of components that are structurally identical to themselves:…

This article discusses several aspects of language planning with respect to Sign Language of the Netherlands, or Nederlandse Gebarentaal (NGT). For nearly thirty years members of the Deaf community, the Dutch Deaf Council (Dovenschap) have been working together with researchers, several organizations in deaf education, and the organization of…