Learning Sign Language to Experience the Essence of Deaf Culture


Book Description

The collection of readings in Learning American Sign Language to Experience the Essence of Deaf Culture broadens students' knowledge of the Deaf community and Deaf culture. The material also gives important and meaningful context to American Sign Language. The readings in the first section introduce students to history through Deaf eyes, medical and cultural views of Deafness, the Deaf community, the grammar of American Sign Language, American Sign Language numbering systems, the American Sign Language continuum, communication technologies and name signs used in American Sign Language. Section two focuses on notable Deaf men and women, the ear and Deafness and Deafhood. The readings in the third section examine artistic areas of Deafness including the Deaf Poet Society and Deaf View of Image in Art. Differing constructions of Deafness and theories of dysconscious audism are discussed. The text also looks at Deaf culture through two American Sign Language Stories: Bird of a Different Feather and For a Decent Living. Extensively class-tested, Learning American Sign Language to Experience the Essence of Deaf Culture develops readers' awareness of and sensitivity to the Deaf community in America. The book is an excellent addition to courses in American Sign Language, Deaf history and culture, and communication sciences and disorders.




Learning Sign Language to Experience the Essence of Deaf Culture


Book Description

The collection of readings in Learning American Sign Language to Experience the Essence of Deaf Culture broadens students' knowledge of the Deaf community and Deaf culture. The material also gives important and meaningful context to American Sign Language. The readings in the first section introduce students to history through Deaf eyes, medical and cultural views of Deafness, the Deaf community, the grammar of American Sign Language, American Sign Language numbering systems, the American Sign Language continuum, communication technologies and name signs used in American Sign Language. Section two focuses on notable Deaf men and women, the ear and Deafness and Deafhood. The readings in the third section examine artistic areas of Deafness including the Deaf Poet Society and Deaf View of Image in Art. Differing constructions of Deafness and theories of dysconscious audism are discussed. The text also looks at Deaf culture through two American Sign Language Stories: Bird of a Different Feather and For a Decent Living. Extensively class-tested, Learning American Sign Language to Experience the Essence of Deaf Culture develops readers' awareness of and sensitivity to the Deaf community in America. The book is an excellent addition to courses in American Sign Language, Deaf history and culture, and communication sciences and disorders.







Understanding Deaf Culture


Book Description

This book 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 existence in the world to themselves and each other.




Talking with Your Hands, Listening with Your Eyes


Book Description

Grayson makes sign language accessible, easy, and fun with this comprehensive primer to the techniques, words, and phrases of signing. 800 illustrative photos.




You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P! (Scholastic Gold)


Book Description

Alex Gino, the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Melissa, is back with another sensitive tale based on increasingly relevant social justice issues. Jilly thinks she's figured out how life works. But when her sister, Emma, is born deaf, she realizes how much she still has to learn. The world is going to treat Jilly, who is white and hearing, differently from Emma, just as it will treat them both differently from their Black cousins. A big fantasy reader, Jilly makes a connection online with another fantasy fan, Derek, who is a Deaf, Black ASL user. She goes to Derek for help with Emma but doesn't always know the best way or time to ask for it. As she and Derek meet in person, have some really fun conversations, and become friends, Jilly makes some mistakes . . . but comes to understand that it's up to her, not Derek to figure out how to do better next time--especially when she wants to be there for Derek the most. Within a world where kids like Derek and Emma aren't assured the same freedom or safety as kids like Jilly, Jilly is starting to learn all the things she doesn't know--and by doing that, she's also working to discover how to support her family and her friends. With You Don’t Know Everything, Jilly P!, award-winning author Alex Gino uses their trademark humor, heart, and humanity to show readers how being open to difference can make you a better person, and how being open to change can make you change in the best possible ways.




Signs for Developing Reading


Book Description

Reading development is supported by strong language skills, not least in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. The work in the present thesis investigates reading development in DHH children who use sign language, attend Regional Special Needs Schools (RSNS) in Sweden and are learning to read. The primary aim of the present work was to investigate whether the reading skills of these children can be improved via computerized sign language based literacy training. Another aim was to investigate concurrent and longitudinal associations between skills in reading, sign language, and cognition in this population. The results suggest that sign language based literacy training may support development of word reading. In addition, awareness and manipulation of the sub-lexical structure of sign language seem to assist word reading, and imitation of familiar signs (i.e., vocabulary) may be associated with developing reading comprehension. The associations revealed between sign language skills and reading development support the notion that sign language skills provide a foundation for emerging reading skills in DHH signing children. In addition, the results also suggest that working memory and Theory of Mind (ToM) are related to reading comprehension in this population. Furthermore, the results indicate that sign language experience enhances the establishment of representations of manual gestures, and that progression in ToM seems to be typical, although delayed, in RSNS pupils. Working memory has a central role in integrating environmental stimuli and language-mediated representations, and thereby provides a platform for cross-modal language processing and multimodal language development.




Signing the Body Poetic


Book Description

This unique collection of essays, accompanied by videos, at last brings a dazzling view of the literary, social, and performative aspects of American Sign Language to a wide audience. The book presents the work of a renowned and diverse group of deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing scholars who examine original ASL poetry, narrative, and drama. The videos showcases the poems and narratives under discussion in their original form, providing access to them for hearing non-signers for the first time. Together, the book and videos provide new insight into the history, culture, and creative achievements of the deaf community while expanding the scope of the visual and performing arts, literary criticism, and comparative literature. The videos may be viewed online at ucpress.edu/go/signingthebodypoetic.




Linguistics of American Sign Language


Book Description

Completely reorganized to reflect the growing intricacy of the study of ASL linguistics, the 5th edition presents 26 units in seven parts, including new sections on Black ASL and new sign demonstrations in the DVD.