Sign language challenges encountered by deaf learners born to hearing parents

Sign language challenges encountered by Deaf learners born to hearing parents. In 1994, South Africa dedicated itself to a democracy for all in line with the constitutional principles of equality and equity as stated in White Paper 6. An attempt was made and is still being made to change the South African education system from one of “total inadequacy” that was governed on the basis of, for example disability, culture, language and race, to an inclusive policy or structure that aims to meet the diverse needs of all South African learners (Department of Education, 2001, p. 12). This study sought to identify the challenges encountered by deaf learners born to hearing parents when using sign language. Sign language is a method of teaching and learning for deaf learners and also provides a communication method at home and at school from early childhood. Stander, Plaatje, and Mcllroy (2017) indicate that deaf children born to hearing families encounter challenges in learning and communicating using sign language at home. This study adopted a qualitative method using a descriptive case study as the research design. The data collection methods included interviews, lesson observations and reviewing of official documents, as well as the use of audio, video and field notes as recording instruments. A purposeful sampling of six deaf learners, their hearing parents and experienced teachers were included in the study. The theoretical framework used for this study was Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective of development, which includes theories about language, culture and cognitive development. The study was furthermore approached from an interpretivist paradigm. The findings indicate that sign language challenges encountered by deaf learners were enhanced by being born into a hearing family that does not have a background in sign language. In addition, language acquisition delays are exacerbated by parental denial of deafness, late discovery of deafness, and the deaf child growing up in a predominantly hearing community. In addition, the findings obtained from the study indicate that teachers’ training in SASL and the use of visual material have a vii significant impact on the deaf learners’ acquisition and learning of sign language. These findings, which focused on South African data, could be utilised to further address issues of SASL acquisition by deaf children.Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2021.Educational PsychologyMEdUnrestricte

Transcription of child sign language: A focus on narrative

This paper describes some general difficulties in analysing child sign language data with an emphasis on the process of transcription. The particular issue of capturing how signers encode simultaneity in narrative is discussed

Competitive dynamics of lexical innovations in multi-layer networks

We study the introduction of lexical innovations into a community of language users. Lexical innovations, i.e., new terms added to people's vocabulary, play an important role in the process of language evolution. Nowadays, information is spread through a variety of networks, including, among others, online and offline social networks and the World Wide Web. The entire system, comprising networks of different nature, can be represented as a multi-layer network. In this context, lexical innovations diffusion occurs in a peculiar fashion. In particular, a lexical innovation can undergo three different processes: its original meaning is accepted; its meaning can be changed or misunderstood (e.g., when not properly explained), hence more than one meaning can emerge in the population; lastly, in the case of a loan word, it can be translated into the population language (i.e., defining a new lexical innovation or using a synonym) or into a dialect spoken by part of the population. Therefore, lexical innovations cannot be considered simply as information. We develop a model for analyzing this scenario using a multi-layer network comprising a social network and a media network. The latter represents the set of all information systems of a society, e.g., television, the World Wide Web and radio. Furthermore, we identify temporal directed edges between the nodes of these two networks. In particular, at each time step, nodes of the media network can be connected to randomly chosen nodes of the social network and vice versa. In so doing, information spreads through the whole system and people can share a lexical innovation with their neighbors or, in the event they work as reporters, by using media nodes. Lastly, we use the concept of "linguistic sign" to model lexical innovations, showing its fundamental role in the study of these dynamics. Many numerical simulations have been performed.Comment: 23 pages, 19 figures, 1 tabl

The ontology of signs as linguistic and non-linguistic entities: a cognitive perspective

It is argued that the traditional philosophical/linguistic analysis of semiotic phe-nomena is based on the false epistemological assumption that linguistic and non-linguistic entities possess different ontologies. An attempt is made to show where linguistics as the study of signs went wrong, and an unorthodox account of the na-ture of semiosis is proposed in the framework of autopoiesis as a new epistemology of the living

Working Effectively with Persons Who Are Hard of Hearing, Late-Deafened, or Deaf

This brochure on persons who are hard of hearing, late-deafened, or deaf and the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) is one of a series on human resources practices and workplace accommodations for persons with disabilities edited by Susanne M. Bruyère, Ph.D., CRC, SPHR, Director, Program on Employment and Disability, School of Industrial and Labor Relations – Extension Division, Cornell University. Cornell University was funded in the early 1990’s by the U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research as a National Materials Development Project on the employment provisions (Title I) of the ADA (Grant #H133D10155). These updates, and the development of new brochures, have been funded by Cornell’s Program on Employment and Disability, the Pacific Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center, and other supporters

A model of the dynamics of organizational communication

We propose a model of the dynamics of organizational communication. Our model specifies the mechanics by which communication impact is fed back to communication inputs and closes the gap between sender and receiver of messages. We draw on language critique, a branch of language philosophy, and derive joint linguistic actions of interlocutors to explain the emergence and adaptation of communication on the group level. The model is framed by Te'eni's cognitive-affective model of organizational communication