Denying Claims of Discrimination in the
Federal Court of Australia: Arguments against the Use of Native Sign Language in
Education
In this article I analyze two cases that are the result of parents� complaints
against education authorities for alleged indirect discrimination on the basis
of their child�s lack of access to instruction through Auslan in regular school
settings. Although bilingual/bicultural programs for deaf students in Australia
are available in some special schools and deaf facilities, the subject of
complaint in these cases relates to the lack of provision of regular classroom
staff members who are fluent in Auslan. Both cases were decided in favor of the
complainants.
Despite the parents� calls for Auslan to be used with their deaf children, the
formal complaints, and attempts at conciliation, the education providers have
maintained a vigorous defense (in one case also appealing the decision of the
Federal Court of Australia). It is therefore of potential interest to
educational researchers and sign linguists to know how the respondents argued
their cases against the use of Native Sign Language (NSL) in the classroom.
Legal counsel is bound to represent its clients� views; therefore, the
defendants� arguments are a reflection of the views and attitudes of the
education authorities whom they represent. This article provides a detailed
account of their denial of the claims of discrimination. In doing so, it
presents perhaps the first comprehensive account in the public domain of the way
in which these authorities view NSL and their reasons for denying its use with
deaf children for whom Auslan is their first or preferred language.
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Bringing Up Baby with Baby Signs: Language
Ideologies and Socialization in Hearing
Families
This article presents an analysis of the functional roles of �baby signing� in
three hearing families in the United States, as well as a discussion of the
social and ideological implications of the practice. Baby signing fits neatly
into the parenting ideologies prevalent in the professional class in the United
States that value early communication with infants and promote the adaptation of
the physical, social, and linguistic environment to their perceived needs. In
the details of everyday interaction, these baby-signing families used signs to
socialize their children into particular interaction rituals. Although the
practice of baby signing is based on a positive view of sign language, the
relatively quick disappearance of signing from the family discourse as the
children grow older will most likely limit any long-term impact on the hearing
community�s views of sign language.
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Deaf Cultural Production in
Twentieth-Century Madrid
This article chronicles the recent processes of identity formation among deaf
people in Spain, both analyzing Spanish-language poetry published in the journal
Faro del Silencio and outlining new directions for research of Deaf culture in
Spain in terms of film, theater, visual poetry. It draws attention to the
significant connections between the Spanish and American contexts in both the
development of deaf history itself and the subsequent theoretical support for
Deaf identity in its cultural and linguistic aspects. This essay suggests that
the question of a cultural Deaf identity in Spain, and Deaf identities
elsewhere, can never be an easy one. The discussion advances the notion that
further analyses of Deaf culture and literature in Spain will aid in this
process to promote the formation of an inclusive even contradictory identity.
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Why Does Constructed Action Seem
Obligatory? An Analysis of �Classifiers� and the Lack of Articulator-Referent
Correspondence
This article explores constructed action (a signer�s use of various parts of
their body�such as the head, torso, and eyegaze�to depict the actions of a
character) and why it appears to be an obligatory accompaniment to some
so-called �classifier� (or polycomponential) signs. It is posited that
constructed action is used to depict aspects of animate entities because
polycomponential signs cannot capture such information, in a simultaneous
fashion, on their own. In particular, the conventionalization of entity
polycomponential signs, the number and shape of articulators in polycomponential
signs, and motoric constraints for polycomponential sign production appear to be
factors that could influence the use of constructed action. As such, constructed
action appears to be a complementary strategy to the use of polycomponential
signs (and perhaps other types of signs and signed language grammar) for
communication. Possible reasons for the robustness of constructed action are
offered.
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