Notation Systems for Reading and Writing Sign Language

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Without written forms, signed languages do not permit the type of textual record available to speakers of English and other written languages. Deaf signers have...     

青少年创造和使用网络语言现象

网络语言的流行、蔓延、渗透和推广与青少年群体息息相关.从实践观点出发,审视网络语言的功能,即网络语言作为一种塑造力渗透于青少年群体行为之中的作用,可以探究和理解网络语言作为青少年群体与世界关系的普遍中介的某些本质和特征,更可以了解和掌握青少年群体某些认知、表达及交往特点.     

Relationship,Language and Pre-Understanding in the Reflecting Processes

This article discusses whether the concepts ‘relationship’, ‘expressing oneself’ and ‘pre-understanding’ might be better starting points to describe and understand ‘the therapeutic process’ than the traditional concepts ‘theory’ and ‘method’. The discussion has emerged from participation in, and will itself clarify, theso-called “reflecting processes”.     

Perception of Emotions in the Hand Movement Quality of Finnish Sign Language

This study investigated whether people can decode emotion (happiness, neutrality, and anger) communicated via hand movements in Finnish sign language when these emotions are expressed in semantically neutral sentences. Twenty volunteer participants without any knowledge of sign language took part in the experiment. The results indicated that the subjects were able to reliably decode anger and neutrality from the quality of hand movements. For happy hand expressions, the responses of happiness and neutrality were confused. Thus, the study showed that emotion-related information can be encoded in the quality of hand movements during signing and that this information can be decoded without previous experience with this particular mode of communication.     

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.     

加快推进中国手语翻译的职业化——基于新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情的思考

突发的新冠病毒肺炎疫情凸显了进一步推动手语翻译职业化、做好手语应急服务人才储备的紧迫性。在这一时期,信息无障碍工作得到了高度重视,科技手段助力手语翻译行业发展,民间手语翻译员自发加入抗疫工作,取得了不少成果,但也暴露出一些问题。本文对中国手语翻译职业化的历程进行了回顾与评述,对手语翻译人才的培养现状进行了描述与总结,并结合此次疫情中手语翻译的情势与问题,提出了加强法律法规建设、翻译教育自我革新及开创手语翻译中国模式等政策建议。     

Moving Faces: Categorization of Dynamic Facial Expressions in American Sign Language by Deaf and Hearing Participants

American Sign Language (ASL) uses the face to express grammar and inflection, in addition to emotion. Research in this area has mostly used photographic stimuli. The purpose of this paper is to present data on how deaf signers and hearing non-signers recognize and categorize a variety of communicative facial expressions in ASL using dynamic stimuli rather than static pictures. Stimuli included six expression types chosen because they share overt similarities but express different content. Hearing participants were more accurate in their categorizations but expressed overall lower confidence regarding their performance.

A Swedish Prevalence Study of Deaf People Using Sign Language: a prerequisite for Deaf studies

A widely used estimate claims that one per thousand individuals is deaf, but few recent studies exist on the actual prevalence. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of deaf people, defined as deaf individuals who use sign language as their main mode of communication, in the county of Scania, Sweden. To achieve high validity, data were collected from a large variety of sources including both public institutions and voluntary associations, working with deaf people. The study demonstrates a prevalence of 0.7 per thousand inhabitants, a figure considerably lower than the traditional estimate. One interpretation of this finding is that the prevalence of deafness is on the decrease. Another interpretation reflects the problem to define deafness. As prevalence figures vary with the definition used, one single estimate valid for the prevalence of deafness is not possible to make. We therefore question the traditional one-per-thousand estimate of deafness.     

Language Learning in the Process of Refugee Resettlement: A Case Study Comparing Conditions in Germany and Japan

Abstract The difficulties encountered in the resettling of refugees in a host country arise from the following sources. The first source of difficulty involves so-called personal factors which stem from the character and experience of the individual refugee. For example, these include past experiences or experiences encountered during flight from the home country, family-background, religion, age, sex, educational level, occupation, etc. The second source pertains to the circumstances surrounding the process of resettlement (e.g. level of assistance offered by the host country, cultural differences between the home and host country, etc.). The third sorce of differences arise from the level of communication between the refugee and the new social environment (for example, the possibility of establishing social contacts, access to various kinds of information, etc.). In this article some characteristics of the language-learning process are discussed with the inclusion of several case-studies from Germany and Japan. It is noted that Germany appears to provide better assistance in language-learning. On the other hand, from the point of view of Indochinese refugees, Japan is more similar culturally and socially. The questions of how language-acquisition can best be achieved, as well as the ways in which the situation of refugees in Germany and Japan can best be improved are discussed.     

Behavioral Language Interventions for Children with Autism: Comparing Applied Verbal Behavior and Naturalistic Teaching Approaches

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Several important behavioral intervention models have been developed for teaching language to children with autism and two are compared in this paper....     

Revisiting the Creating of Settings

I begin by briefly indicating the personal experiences that stimulated me to write the book. I do so because I have come to believe that crucial to the creation of a setting is the range and substance of the leaders' personal and cognitive past experiences in and with complicated settings, and I would also include the length of time of past experience. The shorter the time span of past experience, the more difficult the process will appear, independent of outcome judged by criteria of success or failure. If I had to bet, I would have to say that the shorter that time span, the quicker the criteria for failure will be recognized and the higher the frequency of the death of the setting. I say that not because a longer time span of past experience necessarily indicates that appropriate conclusions have been drawn or that increased age means increased wisdom. What it does mean is that the chances that conclusions appropriate to the creation of a setting have been learned are somewhat higher. Overall, however, the rate of failure is very high. The setting may remain in existence, but its initial purpose may have been long discarded or drastically changed. One could argue that there are instances when these changed purposes should have been discarded. The fact is that we do not know and probably will never know because, as I later indicate, the creation of settings is not likely to be an area of investigation.     

Creating Identity: Free Blacks and the Law

This essay assesses the workings and effectiveness of Virginia's registration system of free blacks during the first generation following its creation in 1793. Although total conformity to the law was not demanded, the system served to identify mobile and unknown free people of color and to ensure white control especially during periods of crisis. Free blacks used the system to document their own freedom and that of free-born children, and to obtain identification papers if forced to leave the state.     

Creating the Next Wave of Family Therapy

This article is an exploration of family therapy in Australia based on interviews with seven leading Australian family therapists: Max Cornwell, Carolyn Quadrio, Ron Perry, Laurie MacKinnon, Brian Stagoll, Banu Moloney and Jim Crawley. It explores the attributes and qualities of what makes a good family therapist and seeks to understand how the next generation of therapists can generate a new enthusiasm for family therapy.     

Processes and Mechanisms of Democratization

Unlike Artistotle's analysis, recent treatments of democratization identify pathways and propose necessary conditions but fall short of specifying cause-effect relations. Democratization does not follow a single path, and is unlikely to have universally applicable necessary or sufficient conditions. A political process analysis of democratization defines it as movement toward broad citizenship, equal citizenship, binding consultation of citizens, and protection of citizens from arbitrary state action. High levels of all four elements depend on a significant degree of state capacity. Democratization emerges from interacting changes in public politics, categorical inequality, and networks of trust, which in turn depend on specifiable mechanisms of change in social relations. When the shocks of conquest, confrontation, colonization, and revolution promote democratization, they do so by accelerating the same causal mechanisms. The next round of research and theory on democratization requires identification, verification, and connection of the relevant causal mechanisms.