The Political Uses of Sign Language: The Case of the French Revolution
The story of the Abb� de l�Ep�e�s �methodical signs� is best known as a key
moment in Deaf history. However, at the time of the French Revolution this story
served a larger political function. The example of de l�Ep�e�s deaf students,
and their seemingly miraculous command of ideas learned through gestural signs,
helped the French revolutionaries to imagine an ideal state of communication in
the midst of a perceived crisis in language and politics. This essay both
explains the political effects of this late eighteenth-century fascination with
sign language and makes a case for the integration of Deaf history into the
history of politics and social life more generally.
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Variation in ASL: The Role of Grammatical Function
Variation in the parts of ASL signs (i.e., phonological variation) has been
explained largely by reference to the influence of the preceding and the
following segments. This article examines three linguistic variables in ASL: the
sign deaf; the location of a class
of signs represented by the verb know;
and signs produced with a 1 handshape. For all three of these variables, a
multivariate analysis of more than nine thousand tokens extracted from
videotaped conversations among 207 signers in seven sites across the United
States shows that the grammatical function of a sign, rather than the features
of the preceding or following signs, is the most important influence on a
signer�s choice among the variants. In addition to providing evidence for the
role of this previously unexamined influence on variation in ASL, the results of
this study highlight the importance of basing claims about the likely causes of
variation on empirical studies of broadly representative samples of data
collected in the language community.
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American Sign Language Teacher Preparation Programs in the United States
Even though ASL isn�t as easy to learn as it may seem at first, more and more
students are enrolling in ASL courses at both the secondary and university
levels and choosing ASL as a primary area of study. For this reason the demand
for ASL teachers is increasing, and the need for ASL teacher-preparation
programs (ASL TPPs) has increased. Therefore, to assess present and future
standards, an examination of the current ASL TPPs in the United States was
called for. This article compares three ASL TPPs and examines them for
compliance with national teaching standards. The analysis of each site
highlights four areas: (a) the program, (b) curriculum development, (c)
admission and enrollment requirements, and (d) the courses. Following the
curricular narratives of these schools is a comparison of their programs with
the trends in national standards. The article ends with some recommendations for
upgrading the existing and new ASL TPPs.
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