A study of deafness in West Africa: The Gambian hearing health project

Research was carried out on various aspects of deafness in a West African population. A national survey of childhood deafness was completed to discover the incidence and causes of severe to profound hearing loss in The Republic of the Gambia. A large school screening campaign was conducted to determine the prevalence of middle ear disease in Gambian children. Smaller studies concerned the hearing loss among post-meningitis patients; the disease pattern of audiology clinic patients in both urban and rural areas; the degree of hearing loss associated with otitis media and the rubella serology of a group of Gambian women and children. It was found that meningitis was a major identifiable disease causing deafness. Rubella and measles, often causes of deafness in other tropical countries, did not seem to be of such importance in The Gambia. Familial factors also accounted for little of the childhood deafness as far as it was possible to tell. Chronic middle ear infections could give rise to considerable hearing loss but rarely led to the dangerous complications often seen in other tropical communities. Effective medical and audiological services for the deaf are difficult to implement in developing countries. A primarily preventive approach may prove to be the most rational way of helping the deaf in The Gambia.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

School screening for hearing loss in developing countries.

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What the fuck is this for a language, this cannot be Deutsch? language ideologies, policies, and semiotic practices of a kitchen crew in a hotel restaurant

In line with the post-Fishmanian turn that contributes to new understandings of social-semiotic practices in different contexts this study is concerned with the language management of 'backstage performers' of a three-star hotel kitchen crew in an Austrian alpine village that economically thrives on tourism, where employers and employees do not always share a common 'language'. Recent free mobility labor rights for certain EU citizens have facilitated economic migrants' ability to work abroad while simultaneously filling labor shortages within the country's service industry in peripheral zones that are salient economic hubs. Drawing on ethnography and moment analysis, results indicate that for language-marginal occupations such as dishwashers, linguistic entrepreneurship is resisted since relying on shared semiotic repertoires and material objects for communicative purposes is preferred given the physically demanding occupation and stressful moments in a restaurant kitchen. The study questions Spolsky's recently modified theory of language policy and management concerning the individual level regarding 'advocates without power' and employability contributing theoretical insights to on-going explorations of bottom-up LPP