The Cultural Construction of Linguistic Incompetence through Schooling: Deaf
Education and the Transformation of the Linguistic Environment in Bali,
Indonesia
Jan Branson and Don Miller
Abstract
Classroom Discourse Practices of a Deaf Teacher Using American Sign Language
David Harry Smith and Claire L. Ramsey
Abstract
Sign Order in Argentine Sign Language
Mar�a Ignacia Massone and M�nica Curiel
Abstract
The Subsystem of Numerals in Catalan Sign Language: Description and Examples
from a Psycholinguistic Study
Mariana Fuentes and Liliana Tolchinsky
Abstract
Melanie Metzger (ed.), Bilingualism & Identity in Deaf Communities
(Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press)
Phyllis Perrin Wilcox
Ceil Lucas (ed.), Language and the Law in Deaf Communities
(Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press)
Paul Siegel
ABSTRACTS
The Cultural Construction of Linguistic
Incompetence through Schooling: Deaf Education and the Transformation of the
Linguistic Environment in Bali, Indonesia
This article examines the impact of teaching strategies on the linguistic
competence of students in a school for deaf pupils in Bali, Indonesia. In
particular, the article examines the effect of the use of a signed version of
Indonesian on the linguistic participation of students in their native
communities. The school�s teaching strategies are based on Western models
transferred to Indonesia via the training of Indonesian teachers in the West and
the presence of Western experts in Indonesia. Indonesian education
administrators have implemented this expertise without questioning its value and
appropriateness. Moreover, proponents of nationalism have imposed the use of the
national language, Indonesian, in education, regardless of the fact that
Indonesian is rarely used in the villages that many deaf students return to.
These factors exert a particularly forceful and disabling, symbolic violence on
the school�s pupils.
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Classroom Discourse Practices of a Deaf
Teacher Using American Sign Language
This article describes the classroom discourse practices of an experienced Deaf
teacher using American Sign Language (ASL) as the medium of instruction in a
fifth-grade classroom in a residential school. The teacher is a native ASL user
who has been teaching for more than thirty-five years. The analysis of three
lessons illustrates the use of ASL linguistic features to encourage student
participation. In constructing a teaching style using ASL, the teacher also
employs discourse practices common among skilled teachers, regardless of the
medium of instruction, such as maintaining a moderate level of control and
selectively modeling na�ve questions. The teacher�s ASL fluency and teaching
experience interact to yield an effective strategy for increasing student
involvement. Implications for classroom practice and suggestions for further
research are included.
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Sign Order in Argentine Sign Language
Word order is the way in which languages establish the relationship between a
verb and its arguments. The world�s spoken languages have been classified into
three major word orders: SOV, SVO, and VSO. As other word orders have also been
identified, linguists have found it necessary to investigate and define the
relevance of semantic (animate/inanimate, agent/patient) and pragmatic
(topic/comment) notions in order to determine their relevance to the ordering of
elements.
Different sign orders were tested in all of the possible combinations of noun
and verb phrases and then verified in different text formats in order to
classify the possible sign orders and analyze the influence of pragmatic and
semantic notions. Deaf people from all over Argentina participated as
informants. The intuition of native signers was also taken into consideration.
The analysis of the corpus was completed with participant observation within the
Deaf community and in different Deaf associations throughout Argentina. The
canonical sign order in Argentine Sign Language was found to be SOV for
sentences with transitive verbs and SV with intransitive ones. Sentences with
modal verbs exhibit a different sign order. Variations of the canonical sign
order occur according to various linguistic constraints and pragmatic purposes.
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The Subsystem of Numerals in Catalan
Sign Language: Description and Examples from a Psycholinguistic Study
Linguistic descriptions of sign languages are essential to support their
linguistic status and to preserve the cultural background of the Deaf
communities that use and recreate them. We describe the subsystem of cardinal
numbers in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) in the variety used in Barcelona. The
description includes the parameters of handshape, orientation, location,
direction, and movement.
We also illustrate, with some results from a psycholinguistic study, how LSC�s
number features influence the transcoding behavior of deaf children learning the
language. Most of the errors the students commit can be explained by
overgeneralization of LSC�s number-system features.
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