Forensic Evaluation of Deaf Individuals: Challenges and Strategies

ABSTRACT

Forensic evaluation of deaf individuals presents unique challenges due to many examinees’ fund of information deficits, potential for language deprivation, and examiners’ frequent lack of creativity regarding communication methods. This article describes challenges most frequently encountered in competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility evaluations and offers strategies for overcoming them. The value of employing multiple communication methods, especially the use of illustrations, is emphasized. Suggestions also are offered regarding preparing evaluation reports and effectively communicating “key deaf fundamentals” to legal personnel. Encouragement is offered for qualified, sign-fluent professionals to engage in forensic work.     

From non-cultural to intercultural principles: a proposal for English classes in Brazilian public schools

This article focuses on English language teaching in Brazilian public schools, based on experiences in primary and secondary education, as well as in Teaching Practicum courses at a university. Through these experiences, the article critiques the overemphasis on grammar and the lack of an intercultural approach. The author engages the reader with a theoretical discussion regarding the connection between language and culture and the possibilities for the implementation of intercultural principles. The article closes with some reflections on what intercultural language learning looks like in practice.     

多语际语言语音习得中的质性案例研究

语言迁移现象既发生在母语与第一外语学习过程中,也同样发生在学习第二外语的过程中,并且因此而变得复杂有趣。多种语言本身的独特性和差异性,使多语际语言基础对第一、第二外语语音学习过程产生了相互影响和作用。本研究以西班牙大学生和中国西班牙语专业大学生为研究对象,通过对比研究中文普通话、英语和西班牙语在语音方面的特点,探索母语、第一外语、第二外语之间的相互关系,及其对语音学习所产生的作用和影响,为多语际语音习得与外语教学提供有价值的借鉴和经验。     

Gay guys using gay language: friendship,shared values and the intent‐context‐effect matrix

This article draws on in‐depth interviews with 35 openly gay male undergraduates from four universities in England to develop an understanding of the changing nature of language related to homosexuality. In addition to finding a diminution in the prevalence of homophobic language, we demonstrate that participants maintain complex and nuanced understandings of phrases that do not use homophobic pejoratives, such as ‘that's so gay’. The majority of participants rejected the notion that these phrases are inherently homophobic, instead arguing that the intent with which they are said and the context in which they are used are vital in understanding their meaning and effect. We conceptualize an intent‐context‐effect matrix to understand the interdependency of these variables. Highlighting the situated nature of this matrix, we also demonstrate the importance of the existence of shared norms between those saying and hearing the phrase when interpreting such language.     

Examples of practice: an intercultural approach to translate Romanian children’s folklore into Spanish

Due to the great number of Romanian pupils in Spanish public school, the local administration organises extra-curricular Romanian courses in order to preserve the Romanian language and culture. This is a way to contribute to build and consolidate a bicultural and bilingual profile of the young people. Besides, it is also an opportunity to align with plurilingual and pluricultural competence established by The Common European Framework of References for Languages (2002). Based on the premise that “children's literature is an intercultural instrument”, I choose as corpus the Romanian children's folklore represented by games, formula-songs, recital-stories, household words, incantations, riddles and lullabies to translate into Spanish. After the translations, Romanian children had to find similarities and differences between the Romanian and Spanish children's songs, in order to augment the knowledge about both cultures.     

语言的狂欢与心灵的痉挛--胡宽诗歌论

胡宽1988年及之前的诗作中，语言的狂欢通过“鼠”意象的大量描写营造出来，“人鼠合一”的背后是人之精神混乱的局面。从1990年开始，胡宽诗作中“鼠辈横行”、语言狂欢的现象渐趋平静，胡宽开始借用一系列宗教性话语来表达对当时社会语境中人之信仰缺失的忧虑以及对拯救灵魂的呼唤。胡宽虽未进入“朦胧诗”“第三代”等诗潮建构起来的“大诗歌历史”，但他却用一己之心灵书写了带有个人生命体验的“小诗歌历史”，他的诗作体现了语言与精神的相互缠绕。     

Was Cicourel’s critique in Methods and Measurement in Sociology too radical?

This article is a contribution to a mini symposium on the 50th anniversary of the publication of A V Cicourel’s Method and Measurement in Sociology (1964). The central theme of the book is reviewed – the problem of the relationship between everyday language and cultural meanings, and the language of measurement in social research – and the lack of an adequate ontology of social actors is identified as being the cause of the problem. The solution offered by Alfred Schütz – that social scientific language should be derived from everyday language – is discussed and it is argued that this was probably too radical at the time the book was published, and is still generally neglected in the social sciences.     

Commodification of place,consumption of identity: The sociolinguistic construction of a ‘global village’ in rural China1

This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of place as it relates to globalization and mobility by examining the sociolinguistic construction of a tourism site. A former residential neighborhood, West Street in Yangshuo County, China, was gradually transformed into a so‐called ‘global village’ for domestic tourists partly through appropriating English as one semiotic resource. Positioning this place in the global‐national‐local nexus, this study shows that the promotion of West Street as a ‘global village’ is not only driven by globalization or westernization, but more importantly capitalizes on English as a stylistic resource that indexes the modernist aspirations of the Chinese people. This commodified sense of place is nevertheless negotiated by tourists as they activate and (re‐)work the social meaning of place through their discursive practices. This highlights how place is a social construct, constantly transformed in the process of socio‐historical change, and also mediated by people's conceptualization, imagination and experience. 本文从社会语言学角度考察一处旅游景点的建构，旨在增进在全球化和流动时代背景下对‘地域’ (place) 的理解。位于中国阳朔县的西街，通过把英语作为一种符号资源，从一个历史居民街区转变成为所谓的‘地球村’。本研究从全球‐国家‐地方三位连结的框架审视该地域，说明‘地球村’不仅仅是全球化带动下的地方经济发展策略，更重要的是借用了在英语作为一种语言风格资源在中国社会中的作用。然而，这种构建的地域涵义也同时被游客通过不同方式激活和改写。本文提出，地域是社会构建的产物，其涵义随着社会历史的变革，人们对地域的理解，想象和体验，而不断改变。[Chinese]     

网络文化背景下汉语言的变异探析

随着互联网的普及,现在中国已经进入了网络时代,现在的人们以及各行各业都离不开网络,它与人们的生活息息相关,尤其现在的年轻人,网络已经成为他们生活中不可缺少的一部分。由于网络的及时性,更多的人已经开始习惯于从网络上获取信息。除了从网络上获取信息,人们还可以在网上交友,信息分享和进行其他的网络活动。网络活动的增多,网络语言也开始繁荣起来。为了适应网络的特殊环境,网络语言在汉语言的词汇、语法、发音和构成上都发生了很大的变异。本文将对网络语言的产生、发展以及网络语言对汉语言产生的影响进行分析。