The Use of Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL)
Eyasu Hailu Tamene
Abstract
Adult College Learners of British Sign Language: Educational Provision and Learner Self-Report Variables Associated with Exam Success
John Allbutt and Jonathan Ling
Abstract
Best Practices for Building a Bimodal Bilingual Child Language Corpus
Deborah Chen Pichler, Julie A. Hochgesang, Diane Lillo-Martin, Ronice Müller de Quadros, Wanette Reynolds
Abstract
The Expression of the Location Event-Structure Metaphor in American Sign Language
Daniel Roush
Abstract
The Use of Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL)
Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL) is one of the underresearched languages of Ethiopia although it is used by more than a million members of the Deaf community. Not much is known about the language, particularly its use and current status. In addition, its users within the Deaf community have begun addressing the issues of equality, participation, and rights. What is more, few people understand that the use of EthSL in all domains of public life helps the Deaf community to succeed in every aspect of life, especially in Deaf education. This article addresses several important questions: Who is using EthSL? In what environments are they using it? Do various circumstances affect the variety they use? In order to answer these questions, I selected a diversity of Deaf gathering sites throughout Ethiopia to investigate. Interviews were held with three types of subjects: Deaf students, teachers of Deaf children, and the parents of these youngsters. Finally, the information that was elicited on the use of EthSL was analyzed in the hope of answering the aforementioned questions.
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Adult College Learners of British Sign Language: Educational Provision and Learner Self-Report Variables Associated with Exam Success
This study investigated educational provision and learner self-report factors associated with exam success for adult learners of British Sign Language (BSL) who were enrolled in either Level 1 or Level 2 courses. These levels are equivalent to the first and second year of a United Kingdom General Certificate of Secondary Education qualification. Two hundred thirty-five students from three further education colleges answered a self-report questionnaire covering a range of variables. Analysis of the data suggests that: (1) success rates differed markedly for Levels 1 and 2; (2) enhancements of educational provision, such as the use of extra conversational classes, appeared to play a role in increasing exam success rates; (3) individual factors associated with exam success varied between course level and between types of provision; (4) variables related to exam success at Level 2 were more numerous and more specifically related to the learning of sign language than those seen at Level 1; and (5) effect sizes seen for enhancements of educational provision were larger than for individual characteristics. These results offer insights into the factors that affect the success rates of people learning sign language.
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Best Practices for Building a Bimodal Bilingual Child Language Corpus
This article addresses the special challenges associated with collecting longitudinal samples of the spontaneous sign language and spoken language production by young bimodal bilingual children. We discuss the methods used in our study of children in the United States and Brazil. Since one of our goals is to observe both sign language and speech, as well as any language mixing, it is important for us to address issues of language choice and techniques for directing the child participant toward primary use of the target language in each session. Suggestions and guidelines for achieving this in effective yet respectful ways are presented. We are especially dependent on the participation, flexibility, and direction of our participant children’s parents, who work with us to elicit samples that are genuinely representative of their children’s linguistic abilities. We illustrate our procedures for training parents and other interlocutors in data-collection sessions. In return for their generous participation in our research, we address parents’ questions and concerns about language development, especially in bimodal bilingual contexts. We take very seriously the need to negotiate with participants regarding their expectations for the use of the data they provide, and we abide by their wishes in this matter. The strategies presented here improve the quality of the investigations we can conduct by making the experiences of the participant families as pleasant as possible.
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The Expression of the Location Event-Structure Metaphor in American Sign Language
Conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) proposes that there is a large system of conceptual metaphors in our cognition known as event-structure metaphors (ESMs). Through ESMs, we understand the conceptual domains of actions, causes, changes, states, purposes, and so forth in terms of the aspects of the domain of motion in space. ESMs are largely organized under two systems, or branches—the location and object branches. Earlier studies present linguistic evidence that these ESM conceptual systems are expressed in unrelated spoken languages (English, Hungarian, Chinese, and Arabic) thus supporting the claim that ESMs are universal. In this article, I explore the question of whether the location branch of event-structure metaphors (location ESM) is exhibited in American Sign Language (ASL). The article begins with a brief review of the conceptual metaphor theory and its application to signed languages. This is followed by a summary of the location ESM and references to studies that support its cross-linguistic universality. A description of data and methods used in this investigation is given. I then define each of the eleven submappings of the location ESM system. For each respective submapping, I reference English examples from the CMT literature. I then analyze evidence selected from ASL corpora suggesting that each of the submappings in the location ESM system is exhibited in ASL. This study is the first systematic investigation in a signed language that supports the claim of universality of each main submapping in the location ESM system.
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