Variation in American Sign Language: The case of DEAF

Variation in sign languages has been a neglected area of research in sociolinguistics. This article, part of a large-scale study of variation in American Sign Language (ASL) designed to redress that situation, examines variation in the form of the sign DEAF, which can be produced by moving the forefinger from ear to chin, from chin to ear, or by contacting the lower cheek. Multivariate analysis of more than 1600 tokens of DEAF extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with 207 signers residing in seven regions of the United States shows that both linguistic and social factors significantly constrain choice among the three variants. The analysis also illustrates patterns that parallel variation in spoken languages. However, despite the similarities to variation in spoken languages, we suggest that results for the regional patterning of variation are best explained by reference to Deaf history, particularly to changes in the status and use of ASL in deaf education.     

Book Reviews

Sandra Lee McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger (eds). Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching.
David Crystal. The Cambridge Encylopaedia of the English Language.
W. Peter Robinson. Deceit, Delusion and Detection.
William F. Hanks. Language and Communicative Practices.
Elizabeth Couper–Kuhlen and Margaret Selting (eds). Prosody in Conversation: Interactive Studies.
Vivian de Klerk (ed.). Focus on South Africa.
M. Teresa Turell Julià (ed.). La Sociolingüística de la variació.
Michael Clyne. The German Language in a Changing Europe.
Jon F. Nussbaum and Justine Coupland (eds). Handbook of Communication and Aging Research.
David W. Green and others. Cognitive Science: an Introduction.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Susan Ehrlich, Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent
Deborah Cameron, Working with Spoken Discourse
Stefan Titscher, Michael Meyer, Ruth Wodak and Eva Vetter, Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis
Linda A. Wood and Rolf O. Kroger, Doing Discourse Analysis: Methods for Studying Action in Talk and Text
Srikant Sarangi and Celia Roberts (eds.), Talk, Work and Institutional Order: Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings
Ulrich Ammon (ed.), The Dominance of English as a Language of Science: Effects on Other Languages and Language Communities
Alexandra Jaffe, Ideologies in Action: Language Politics on Corsica
Niloofar Haeri, The Sociolinguistic Market of Cairo: Gender, Class and Education
Anita Y. K. Poon, Medium of Instruction in Hong Kong: Policy and Practice
Tariq Rahman, Language, Education and Culture
Dariusz Galasinski, The Language of Deception: A Discourse Analytical Study
Clifford Hill and Eric Larsen, Children and Reading Tests
Fern L. Johnson, Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States
Lucy Burke, Tony Crowley and Alan Girvin (eds.), The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader     

Deaf Workers in Restaurant,Retail, and Hospitality Sector Employment: Harnessing Research to Promote Advocacy

ABSTRACT

A quarter-century after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). (1990). P.L. 101–336, 105 Stat. 327, 42 U.S.C., 12101 et. seq. [Google Scholar]), workplace accommodation is still a struggle for deaf employees and their managers. Many challenges are the result of communication barriers that can be overcome through much needed—although often absent—advocacy and training. This article highlights the literature on the employment of deaf individuals in the United States service industries of food service, retail, and hospitality conducted from 2000 to 2016. Exploring dimensions of both hiring and active workplace accommodation, suggestions are made for how social work advocates can harness information and strengthen their approaches for educating managers and supporting workers.     

Book Reviews

Honey, John. Language is Power: The Story of Standard English and its Enemies .
Ó Snodaigh, Pádraig. Hidden Ulster: Protestants and the Irish Language .
Edwards, Derek. Discourse and Cognition .
Blaney, Roger. Presbyterians and the Irish Language .
Traill, Anthony. Extinct South African Languages Compact disk plus booklet
Kasper, Gabriele, and Kellerman, Eric (eds.). Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives .     

Toward a social relational model of Deaf childhood

This paper advances a social relational model of Deaf childhood as a guiding framework for working with Deaf children in a present-day universal neonatal hearing screening and early intervention context. The authors discuss how Deaf children are contextualized in a medical model discourse, in a social model of Deaf childhood, and in a Deaf culture discourse. A social relational model is then discussed in with reference to a capability approach and to findings from the first author’s study of parents and young children participating in an American Sign Language shared reading program in Ontario, Canada.     

Book Reviews

Rampton, Ben, Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents
Drechsel, Emanuel J., Mobilian Jargon: Linguistic and Sociohistorical Aspects of a Native American Pidgin
Hensel, Chase, Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska
Silverman, David, Discourses of Counselling: HIV Counselling as Social Interaction
Goebl, Hans; Nelde, Peter H.; Starý, Zdeněk and Wölck, Wolfgang (eds), Kontaktlinguistik, Contact Linguistics, Linguistique de contact
Baxter, Leslie A. and Montgomery, Barbara M., Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics
Lanstyák, István and Szabómihály, Gizella, Magyar nyelvhasználat – iskola – kétnyelvüség [Hungarian language use, schools and bilingualism]
Zentella, Ana Celia, Growing up Bilingual: Puerto Rican Children in New York
Fairclough, Norman, Media Discourse     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Charles Antaki and Sue Widdicombe (eds.)., Identities in Talk Tove Skutnab‐Kangas, Linguistic Genocide in Education–or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Marnie Holborow, The Politics of English: A Marxist View of Language Clare Mar‐Molinero, The Spanish Speaking World: A Practical Introduction to Sociolinguistic Issues Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe (eds.), Global Literacies and the World‐Wide‐Web Justine Coupland (ed.), Small Talk Francesca Bargiela‐Chiappini and Catherine Nickerson (eds.)., Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourses Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success Kenneth J. Gergen, An Invitation to Social Construction James Milroy and Lesley Milroy, Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English Linda Thomas and Sha¨n Wareing, Language, Society and Power: An Introduction     

A Functional Analysis of Non-Vocal Verbal Behavior of a Young Child With Autism

The functions of an American Sign Language response were experimentally evaluated with a young boy diagnosed with autism. A functional analysis procedure based on that reported by Lerman et al. (2005) was used to evaluate whether the target sign response would occur under mand, tact, mimetic, or control conditions. The target sign was observed most often in the mand and mimetic test conditions, very seldom in the tact test condition, and never in the control condition. These results support those reported by Lerman et al. and extend previous research by evaluating a non-vocal verbal response using a brief multi-element arrangement with a single control condition. The implications for language assessment and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Addiction Treatment with Deaf and Hard of Hearing People: An Application of the CENAPS Model

ABSTRACT

Alcohol and drug addiction is a significant problem among deaf and hard of hearing people. Looking through a Deaf culture lens, treatment for alcohol and drug addiction is key for providing care for deaf and hard of hearing clients. Using the CENAPS model, an applied cognitive-behavioral therapy program is recommended for addiction treatment. The CENAPS model provides clinicians with tools for stabilizing deaf and hard of hearing clients, supporting their transition to early recovery. Educating the client about the stages of relapse and the stages of recovery, clinicians using this model can better treat and prepare deaf and hard of hearing clients for long-term recovery.     

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.     

Deaf Families’ Unique Experiences and Obstacles

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on deaf children of deaf parents who grew up using American Sign Language (ASL) in deaf culture. Deaf children of deaf parents described their unique experiences of struggling with obstacles, including quality of education, low expectations from professionals, unwanted sympathy, mental health therapists’ lack of cultural competency, and not being asked for valuable perspectives or advice. The advice from deaf children of deaf parents is included in the article. By bringing greater attention to this population, mental health, school, and other professionals can increase their awareness of deaf families’ unique needs in their work environment.     

Reviews

The article discusses language as a form of social differentiation and the importance of its recognition as such within social work. Structural and ideological barriers to the recognition of linguistic identity within the UK context are explored, before focusing on additional language tuition and the benefits of its use as an awareness raising tool, drawing from socio‐linguistics literature and applying it to social work education.

Research points to the necessity of the development of a ‘third place’ between a native and target linguistic culture to permit a greater depth of understanding of multicultural and multilingual contexts. It is argued that culturally competent language tuition, when used beyond an exercise in communicative competence or bilingual resource development, has great potential in terms of developing anti‐discriminatory practice past a monolingual framework, and allowing monolingual practitioners to discover their own linguistic identities, and reach their own ‘third place’.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed
Romaine, Suzanne. Communicating Gender
Chouliaraki, Lilie and Fairclough, Norman. Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis
Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity
Kontra, Miklo´s; Phillipson, Robert; Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Va´rady, Tibor (eds.). Language: A Right and a Resource. Approaches to Linguistic Human Rights
Foulkes, Paul and Docherty, Gerard (eds.). Urban Voices. Accent Studies in the British Isles
Baron, Naomi S. Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Monica Heller, Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography Philip Baker and John Eversley, (eds.) Multilingual Capital. The Languages of London's Schoolchildren and their Relevance to Economic, Social and Educational Policies Ralph Penny, Variation and Change in Spanish Maria Pilar Navarro Errasti, Rosa Lores Sanz, Silvia Murillo Ornat and Carmina Buesa Gomez, (eds.) Transcultural Communication: Pragmalinguistic Aspects Deborah Cameron, Good to Talk? Living and Working in Communication Culture Susan Ehrlich, Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent Mikko Lehtonen, The Cultural Analysis of Texts     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Stephen Whitehead and Roy Moodley (eds), Transforming Managers: Gendering Change in the Public Sector Julia O'Connell Davidson, Prostitution, Power and Freedom Su Maddock, Challenging Women Kathleen Weiler and Sue Middleton (eds), Telling Women's Lives Eileen Drew, Ruth Emerek and Evelyn Mahon, Women, Work and the Family in Europe Ian Proctor and Maureen Padfield, Young Adult Women, Work and Family     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Ann Brooks and Alison Mackinnon (eds.), Gender and the Restructured University Deborah Cameron, Good to Talk? Living and Working in a Communication Culture Jody Miller, One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs and Gender David D. Hall(ed.), Witch–hunting in Seventeenth–century New England: A Documentary History 1638–1693 Carla Freeman, High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink Collar Identities in the Caribbean     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: L.A. Reese and K.E. Lindenberg, Implementing Sexual Harassment Policy: Challenges for the Public Sector Workplace Amy Flowers, The Fantasy Factory: An Insider's View of the Phone Sex Industry Helinä Melkas and Richard Anker, Gender Equality and Occupational Segregation in Nordic Labour Markets John Denton, Organisational Learning and Effectiveness Carol Lee Bacchi, Women, Policy and Politics     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Project on Social History Curriculum. Peter N. Stearns and Linda W. Rosenzweig, eds., six volumes. Pittsburgh, Penn.: Carnegie-Mellon University, 1982, 1502 pp., 108 transparencies. Reviewed by Mildred Alpern.

Using Local History in the Classroom. Fay D. Metcalf and Matthew T. Downey. Nashville, Tennessee: The American Association for State and Local History, 1982, 284 pp. Reviewed by Gerald A. Danzer.     

Book Reviews

Indonesia: the making of a culture. James J. Fox (ed.). 286pp, maps, figures, tables, bibliographies. (Vol. 1 in Indonesia: Australian Perspectives. James J. Fox, Ross Garnaut, Peter McCawley, J.A.C. Mackie (eds).) Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1980. $10.

Mekeo: inequality and ambivalence in a village society. Epeli Hau’ofa. x, 3 39pp., maps, figures, tables, plates, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. Canberra: Australian National University Press. 1981. $19.50.

Tribal communities in rural areas. Elspeth Young, xxiii, 230pp., maps, figures, tables, bibliography. (The Aboriginal Component in the Australian Economy, no. 1.) Canberra: Development Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1981. $9.

Women in India and Nepal. Michael Allen and S.N. Mukerjee (eds). xiii, 286pp., figures, bibliographies, index. Canberra: The Australian National University (Monographs on South Asia no. 8). 1982. $10.