Britain's Deaf Heritage


Book Description




Deafness, community and culture in Britain


Book Description

Setting a case study of deaf people’s leisure practices in north-west England within a wider examination of communal deaf leisure across Britain, this book offers new insights into a misunderstood and misrepresented community. The book provides a detailed analysis of deaf people’s leisure during the second half of the twentieth century, which questions perceptions of deafness as a disability, investigates the importance of shared leisure in community formation more generally and examines the ways in which changing patterns of socialisation are affecting British society. Although focusing on the British deaf community, the concepts and principles explored in this book can be applied across a wide range of social, cultural and ethnic groups. This book draws upon a wide range of subject areas and will consequently be of interest to students and academics working in the fields of disability, history, community and cultural minority studies, sport, leisure and regional studies




The Deaf Way


Book Description

Selected papers from the conference held in Washington DC, July 9-14, 1989.




EVERYONE HERE SPOKE SIGN LANGUAGE


Book Description

From the seventeenth century to the early years of the twentieth, the population of Martha’s Vineyard manifested an extremely high rate of profound hereditary deafness. In stark contrast to the experience of most deaf people in our own society, the Vineyarders who were born deaf were so thoroughly integrated into the daily life of the community that they were not seen—and did not see themselves—as handicapped or as a group apart. Deaf people were included in all aspects of life, such as town politics, jobs, church affairs, and social life. How was this possible? On the Vineyard, hearing and deaf islanders alike grew up speaking sign language. This unique sociolinguistic adaptation meant that the usual barriers to communication between the hearing and the deaf, which so isolate many deaf people today, did not exist.




Deaf Heritage


Book Description

Originally published: Silver Spring, Md.: National Association of the Deaf, 1981.




The Linguistics of British Sign Language


Book Description

This is the first detailed explanation of the way British Sign Language works and is the product of many years' experience of research and teaching sign linguistics to deaf and hearing people. It assumes no previous knowledge of linguistics or sign language, and is not structured around traditional headings such as phonology, morphology and syntax. Instead it is set out in such a way as to help learners and their teachers understand the linguistic principles behind the language. There are sections on BSL grammar and also on the use of BSL, including social acceptability in signing, variation, and poetry and humour in BSL. Technical terms and linguistic jargon are kept to a minimum, and the text contains many examples from English, BSL, and other spoken and sign languages. The book is amply illustrated and contains exercises, as well as a reading list for further study. An accompanying 90-minute DVD is available from Talk With Sign Books. To find out more, visit http://www.talkwithsign.com/linguistics-british-sign-language-p-741.html.




A history of disability in England


Book Description

Throughout history numerous individuals with disabilities have had to pit themselves against huge obstacles placed in their way because of the type of person they were born as, the type of person they became through accident, illness or circumstances, or the type of person they have been perceived as. This book tells the story of how disabled people have done this, how they have seen themselves, how they have been perceived and treated by others and how they have influenced society. People with disabilities have always been a part of English society and this concise thousand-year history ranges from the surprisingly integrated communities of the medieval and early modern periods to the institutionalisation of the 19th and 20th centuries. Sometimes the history of disability is described as a hidden history. This book argues that it is no such thing. The history of people with disabilities is often in front of our eyes, yet we frequently choose to ignore it, or simply do not see it. Accounts of daily life, events, art, literature, family histories and political debate have always featured people with disabilities who are there for all to see, but too often observers, particularly non-disabled observers, gaze straight past them.




Understanding Deaf Culture


Book Description

This text presents a Traveller's Guide to deaf culture, starting from the premise that deaf cultures have an important contribution to make to other academic disciplines, and human lives in general. Within and outside deaf communities, there is a need for an account of the new concept of deaf culture, which enables readers to assess its place alongside work on other minority cultures and multilingual discourses. The book aims to assess the concepts of culture, on their own terms and in their many guises and to apply these to deaf communities. The author illustrates the pitfalls which have been created for those communities by the medical concept of deafness and contrasts this with his new concept of deafhood, a process by which every deaf child, family and adult implicitly explains their existance in the world to themselves and each other.




Managing the Experience of Hearing Loss in Britain, 1830–1930


Book Description

This book looks at how hearing loss among adults was experienced, viewed and treated in Britain before the National Health Service. We explore the changing status of ‘hard of hearing’ people during the nineteenth century as categorized among diverse and changing categories of ‘deafness’. Then we explore the advisory literature for managing hearing loss, and techniques for communicating with hearing aids, lip-reading and correspondence networks. From surveying the commercial selling and daily use of hearing aids, we see how adverse developments in eugenics prompted otologists to focus primarily on the prevention of deafness. The final chapter shows how hearing loss among First World War combatants prompted hearing specialists to take a more supportive approach, while it fell to the National Institute for the Deaf, formed in 1924, to defend hard of hearing people against unscrupulous hearing aid vendors. This book is suitable for both academic audiences and the general reading public. All royalties from sale of this book will be given to Action on Hearing Loss and the National Deaf Children’s Society.




Engaging with Heritage and Historic Environment Policy


Book Description

A comprehensive review of policy and practice in the historic environment, this book exposes the tensions, challenges and difficulties faced by the heritage sector at a time of political volatility. This collection comes at a key moment for planning policy in the historic environment of England. The papers reflect a wide range of views and experience in the practical environment of policy and implementation. Contributors give perspectives on both policy and practice from legal counsel to local authorities, from the country’s largest NGO to the museums sector. Some conclusions are controversial, providing an important insight into the operation of national and local government. The thrust of the volume is the need to close the gap between research and policy production. Written when the UK government’s White Paper, Planning for the Future (August 2020), was in preparation, the chapters explore the implementation of policy, its unexpected and unanticipated outcomes and the enduring legacies of guidance and established practice. It highlights tensions within the sector and the need for collaboration and partnership. This book is the most recent and comprehensive review of how the heritage sector has evolved and draws special attention to the importance of the historic environment, not just in planning policy but for the country as a whole. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice.