Sign Language Studies最新文献

{"title":"Introduction: The First Wave of Sign Language Research—Selected Memoirs","authors":"Penny Boyes Braem, Virginia Volterra, Robbin Battison, Nancy Frishberg, Carol Padden","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920099","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Introduction:<span>The First Wave of Sign Language Research—Selected Memoirs</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Penny Boyes Braem (bio), Virginia Volterra (bio), Robbin Battison (bio), Nancy Frishberg (bio), and Carol Padden (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>Why a Special Issue?</h2> <p>Fifty years after William Stokoe founded <em>Sign Language Studies</em> (SLS) in 1972, we have reason to give thanks for a half-century of research and discovery, and to reflect on its origins. Because much has changed since those early days. And many stories have not yet been told.</p> <p>The idea for a special issue arose when two of us (Boyes Braem and Volterra) wrote a short memoir relating our first steps into the nascent field of sign language research about fifty years ago. The SLS <strong>[End Page 185]</strong> editors then proposed expanding it to include memoirs from other pioneering researchers, which would also align with the journal's fiftieth anniversary.</p> <p>Thus, this special issue was born, with Frishberg, Padden, and Battison joining Boyes Braem and Volterra on the editorial team. We gathered twenty-three contributions from early researchers of twelve different sign languages in North America and Europe, as well as a short report on sign languages in six Asian countries and Hawai'i.</p> <p>We asked each of these contributors to describe their first steps in beginning research on the sign language in their country, and to tell it in their own way. They were also encouraged to mention any special conditions they faced as they began their work.</p> <p>The resulting collection serves as historical documentation of how a new research field is born. We believe that the personal details and variety of motivations and settings will interest a wide range of readers—not only the veterans of the field who will recognize their pioneering friends, but also younger researchers seeking insights into the roots of sign language linguistics and related fields.</p> <h2>Scope and Limitations</h2> <p>To ensure the issue's feasibility, we primarily invited researchers who published descriptions of sign languages before 1980 in the United States and before 1990 in Europe. Our goal was not to document how the field has changed over fifty years, but simply to describe the startup phases. Although this cutoff may exclude some early researchers, and not everyone we invited could participate, the collection still offers a representative glimpse into the origins of this field. Following this Introduction is a short list of our contributors, in which they describe why they first became involved in sign language research.</p> <p>Sadly, it was too late for some very influential researchers to contribute, as they are no longer with us—among them William Stokoe, Bernard Tervoort, Paul Jouison, Ursula Bellugi, Edward Klima, Harlan Lane, Mary Brennan, Inger Ahlgren,","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early Sign Language Research in Two Settings: USA and Switzerland","authors":"Penny Boyes Braem","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920110","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This contribution begins with my memories as a hearing American-Swiss researcher who began with research on American Sign Language (ASL) and afterward concentrated on Swiss German Sign Language (Deutschschweizerische Gebärdensprache, DSGS). The contribution includes memories of the first research team in German Switzerland: Claudia Murray Jauch, Katja Tissi, and Tanja Tissi.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"2016 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139978253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How I Changed Ed Klima's Mind","authors":"Nancy Frishberg","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920104","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; How I Changed Ed Klima's Mind &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Nancy Frishberg (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;h2&gt;Fall 1970&lt;/h2&gt; &lt;p&gt;With an undergraduate degree in linguistics from University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley), I came to grad school in linguistics at University of California at San Diego (UCSD). Why UCSD? Because of the six places I applied to, five of which accepted me, only UCSD gave me financial support, in this case for being a foreign language teaching assistant. I arrived with an introduction to Ursula Bellugi from Dan Slobin, whose seminar in child language acquisition I'd taken at Berkeley.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;My first week, I was assigned to share an office with Rick Lacy, the other language tutor for Russian. (Some linguistics grad students taught foreign language grammar and reading, while native speakers from other departments taught conversational skills.) I had announced my interest in pursuing child language acquisition as a specialty at the department welcoming meeting. Though there was no faculty member who specialized in this area, Edward S. Klima, known to me for his (1964) work on English negation, stepped up as my advisor. And I learned then that he was also Ursula Bellugi's husband. So, Rick and Ed knew about my interest in first language acquisition.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Rick let me know about the inaugural Friday seminar at the Salk Institute for the Biological Sciences—just a quarter-mile north from UCSD's psychology-and-linguistics building—where we could meet others intrigued by first language acquisition. Ursula Bellugi had &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 234]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt; Click for larger view&lt;br/&gt; View full resolution Figure 1. &lt;p&gt;Nancy Frishberg enjoying bakeries of Rome, Italy (1983). Photo courtesy of Margaret Ransom Cobb.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt; Click for larger view&lt;br/&gt; View full resolution Figure 2. &lt;p&gt;Edward Klima and Ursula Bellugi at the Copenhagen Conference in 1979. Photo from the author's collection.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[End Page 235]&lt;/strong&gt; recently gotten a federal grant to continue her work on children acquiring first languages, this time focused on how deaf children with signing deaf parents learn sign language as a native language. Because the Salk Institute was dedicated to biological sciences, this grant proposal and the many that followed were framed as explorations into the biological foundations of language, as initiated by Eric Lenneberg (1967). Susan Fischer started her postdoctoral role at the Bellugi lab that same semester. Robbin Battison, still an undergrad, joined in. And Don Newkirk was already on board, though he spent part of that year elsewhere as part of his military service.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I arrived at UCSD from Berkeley's linguistics department, cofounded by Mary Haas, who aimed to preserve as many native languages of North America as possible before the speakers died. Her directive was that l","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"140 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139981700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reflections on the Early Days of Sign Language Research","authors":"Susan D. Fischer","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920103","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>In the spirit of the theme of this special issue, I'm going to focus largely on my experiences prior to 1980.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Accidental Sign Linguist","authors":"James Woodward","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920111","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>My involvement in sign linguistics began in 1969 and is still ongoing, with affiliations and collegial relationships at a number of institutions. Interestingly, all of these affiliations began with chance meetings or serendipity. Along the way, my research focus and emphasis has shifted, depending on funding, institutional priorities, or my own choices.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the Psycholinguistics of ASL with Harlan Lane","authors":"François Grosjean","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920105","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Exploring the Psycholinguistics of ASL with Harlan Lane &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; François Grosjean (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;I&lt;small&gt;t all started&lt;/small&gt; when I received a letter from Harlan Lane postmarked in San Diego, at the beginning of 1974, inviting me to the United States. Harlan and I had first met in 1969 when he had come to the University of Paris 8 (Vincennes) as a visiting faculty. He had a permanent position at the University of Michigan, after having studied at Columbia and Harvard, and despite his young age of thirty-three at the time, he was already quite famous (figure 1).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I was a young French teaching assistant looking around for a good thesis topic and an advisor. I followed some courses and seminars with him and quickly became totally captivated by this American professor who was such an amazing teacher. I knew after a while that I had found my future area of expertise, psycholinguistics, and the thesis advisor I was looking for. We agreed that I would work on temporal variables—speech rate and its components, that is, articulation rate and number and duration of pauses—in a first and a second language. Harlan helped me design the appropriate studies and guided me each step of the way. I was simply amazed that a faculty member was prepared &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 252]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt; Click for larger view&lt;br/&gt; View full resolution Figure 1. &lt;p&gt;Harlan Lane and François Grosjean in the 1980s.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;to spend so much time and energy guiding someone's research. It was only later that I was to discover that this was the American way of doing things. Our partnership worked perfectly, and out of those Paris years together came, not only my thesis, but also a number of papers we published in the &lt;em&gt;Journal of Experimental Psychology&lt;/em&gt;. From being a teacher and thesis advisor, Harlan slowly became a research partner and a friend.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;After several years in France, much to my regret, Harlan went back to the United States to take up a visiting position at the University of California in San Diego. Just before saying goodbye, in late 1972, I told him that if ever he saw a way of getting me over to America, my family and I would be willing to move over for a year or two. We kept in touch by letter, and through his occasional visits to Paris, I learned, among other things, that he was working on his future book, &lt;em&gt;The Wild Boy of Aveyron&lt;/em&gt; (Lane 1976). It is the story of Victor, a wild boy found in the Aveyron department of France in the early 1800s, and of the years he spent under the care of physician and educator Jean-Marc Itard. It was while Harlan was preparing this book that he had his &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 253]&lt;/strong&gt; first contact with sign language, since Itard had tried teaching Victor French Sign Language. But Harlan's real immersion in the language was at the Salk Institute in San Die","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Memories from the First Researchers of German Sign Language","authors":"Siegmund Prillwitz, Alexander von Meyenn, Wolfgang Schmidt, Regina Leven","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920119","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Memories from the First Researchers of German Sign Language &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Siegmund Prillwitz (bio), Alexander von Meyenn (bio), Wolfgang Schmidt (bio), and Regina Leven (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;h2&gt;Introduction&lt;/h2&gt; &lt;p&gt;This contribution is made up of separate memoirs from the first team that Siegmund Prillwitz pulled together around 1982 to begin research on German Sign Language (DGS) at the University of Hamburg. The \"Three Musketeers\" in this text refers to the first deaf researchers who worked with him: Alexander von Meyenn, Wolfgang Schmidt, and Heiko Zienert (who died in 2019). Regina Leven was also in this first research team and, at the same time, was one of the first DGS interpreters. In 1997, Prillwitz, von Meyenn, Zienert, Schmidt, Leven, and Bernd Rehling all received the Cultural Award &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 406]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt; Click for larger view&lt;br/&gt; View full resolution Figure 1. &lt;p&gt;Siegmund Prillwitz in 1989. Photo courtesy of Thorsten Herbig.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;of the German Federation of the Deaf, which is awarded every four years, for their pioneering work. DGS was officially recognized in Germany in 2002. Prillwitz retired in 2005.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The contributions from Prillwitz, von Meyenn, and Zienert are English translations of interviews from television broadcasts, as well as from interviews published on the University of Hamburg website.&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;h2&gt;Siegmund Prillwitz&lt;/h2&gt; &lt;p&gt;In 1979, I was an assistant at the University of Hamburg for the German language and was asked by Professor Kröhnert, professor of deaf education at the university at that time, to create seminars for teachers of the deaf so that they could better teach the deaf German &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 407]&lt;/strong&gt; grammar. When I took a look at how this was done in schools, I was suddenly quite fascinated that during breaks in the instruction, the deaf students, even though signing was forbidden in class, still signed. And as a linguist, I wanted to know more about this, so I went to a kindergarten, early education classes, and a deaf club, and from then on, I became more and more interested in sign language.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Then I was very lucky to meet Wolfgang Schmidt, social pedagogue at the Hamburg School for the Deaf, then Heiko Zienert, and Alexander von Meyenn. Beginning in 1982, every Monday, before going to my string quartet with my violin, we met at my home: Heiko, Alexander, and Wolfgang—three deaf intellectuals—and Regina Leven.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Actually, I had come across the topic before through the literature. Before that, I had no contact with deaf people or sign language, neither through my relatives nor as a linguist. I had also largely succumbed to the common prejudice against sign language: \"Yes, that's probably a makeshift means to somehow communicate something visually.\"&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Our group started an investigation in which we looked a","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Photo Gallery","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920112","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Photo Gallery <!-- /html_title --></li> </ul> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 1. <p>Don Newkirk, Salk ASL researcher, 1973.</p> <p></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 2. <p>Venita Driscoll, Salk ASL researcher, 1973.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>[End Page 339]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 3. <p>Shanny Mow, researcher at the Salk Institute, 1973.</p> <p></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 4. <p>Program from the Linguistics Society of America's first annual meeting to have a sign language session Dec. 1973.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>[End Page 340]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 5. <p>ASL researcher James Woodward and ASL interpreter Sharon Newmann Solow, American Anthropological Association, Mexico City, Dec. 1974.</p> <p></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 6. <p>Researchers Judy Kegl (ASL), Scott Liddell (ASL), and Trude Schermer (NGT) with Filip Loncke (Belgium SL) in the background at a Gallaudet gathering for sign linguistics.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>[End Page 341]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 7. <p>Lars Åke Wikström, Swedish Sign Language researcher at the 1979 Copenhagen Conference.</p> <p></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 8. <p>ASL researchers Carol Padden and Larry Fleischer at the 1979 Copenhagen Conference.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>[End Page 342]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Figure 9. <p>Participants at the 1983 Rome Conference.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>[End Page 343]</strong></p> Copyright © 2024 Gallaudet University ... </p>","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Research for a Reason","authors":"Charlotte Baker-Shenk","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920101","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Research for a Reason &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Charlotte Baker-Shenk (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;I&lt;small&gt;t took me&lt;/small&gt; a long time, many years, before I stopped having dreams about the Linguistics Research Lab (LRL) at Gallaudet—of being part of something so much bigger than myself. Of good-hearted and bright-minded colleagues working tirelessly to discover and document the complex, brilliant structures of a denigrated language—and in doing so, to help alleviate the pain of an oppressed community that had been told it \"didn't have a language.\" The LRL had been a beehive of activity, fielding urgent requests for information and assistance from people all around the world, and a welcoming, resting place for Deaf&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; people working on the Gallaudet campus and elsewhere who would regularly show up to share their painful experiences.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;But I didn't start with an awareness of this struggle. Before ar riving at the LRL, I was simply a graduate student in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1970s with a background in psychology and an interest in the nonverbal behavior of hearing people while speaking. On a whim, I took an evening class in sign language with a Deaf instructor and fell in love with the language. That led me to help set up a fieldwork class at Berkeley with a Deaf instructor—and eventually to request a meeting with William C. Stokoe and ask for the opportunity to work with him at the LRL. At our first meeting, Dr. Stokoe (Bill) generously spent an entire day with me responding to my many questions and sharing LRL resources. However, because I couldn't muster the courage to ask about working at the LRL, I instead asked to return the next day, and Bill agreed. When I finally asked him the following day, Bill responded with his typical welcome and hearty support. My work there began in the summer of 1975. &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 203]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Bill and I ended up receiving a multiyear grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the linguistic functions of non-manual behaviors in American Sign Language (ASL), which became my area of research for many years. I was also fortunate, as a graduate student, to meet Drs. Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen at their Human Interaction Lab at UC San Francisco, and to become part of their pioneering work in training a group of graduate students to reliably use their new Facial Action Coding System (FACS). FACS eventually became the primary tool I used for my dissertation research—meticulously coding all the facial movements, muscle by muscle, of native Deaf signers in conversations.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It took hundreds of hours watching videotaped segments over and over again (noting changes in each video \"field,\" sixty fields per second) to numerically code and analyze a total of three conversational minutes! The results were astonishing—fac","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Signed Swedish to Swedish Sign Language in the 1970s","authors":"Brita Bergman","doi":"10.1353/sls.2024.a920124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2024.a920124","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; From Signed Swedish to Swedish Sign Language in the 1970s &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Brita Bergman (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;A&lt;small&gt;s hearing people&lt;/small&gt; with sign language skills, we are used to answering questions as to why we know sign language. We all have a story to tell, some with surprising coincidences. One of my favorite examples is the young woman who wanted to register for an evening course in guitar playing. The course was fully subscribed, and it was suggested that she take a course in sign language instead. It was the beginning of a professional career as a sign language interpreter. Here is the beginning of my story.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It is not entirely clear when it began. It probably happened back in my hometown, when I was a high school student and spent many afternoons at a café where three deaf, signing men used to meet.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;An important episode in my story occurred when I was a student in linguistics and took a course in psycholinguistics (spring 1971). The course coordinator, Inger Ahlgren, arranged a study visit to the school for deaf and hard of hearing children in Stockholm, the Manilla School. We were informed by the headmistress, Rut Madebrink, that sign language was not used in communication with the students. Since I knew that deaf people used sign language, it did not make sense. I could not understand why deaf children were denied access to the language used by deaf adult people. Instead of being approached with a language they had the ability to perceive, deaf children were left to look at the mouths of people whose speech sounds they could not &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 474]&lt;/strong&gt; hear. I found it unbelievably cruel and felt like being thrown back to the Middle Ages.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Later, I learned that The Swedish National Association of the Deaf (henceforth SDR) had since the early twentieth century advocated the use of sign language in deaf education. This work was intensified in the 1970s and began with a conference to which educational authorities and the parents' organization Döva barns målsmän (Guardians of Deaf Children) were invited. An important outcome of this meeting was that for the first time, the deaf organization managed to reach out to parents of deaf and hard of hearing children and that cooperation between the two organizations was initiated. This was a huge success for SDR, whose opposition to the oral policy of the National Board of Education, Skolöverstyrelsen (henceforth SÖ), was now shared with the parents' organization.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The third semester of my studies in linguistics (autumn 1971) included writing a bachelor's thesis. At the first seminar, Professor Bengt Sigurd suggested possible topics, one of which was sign language. My hand flew up in the air. I knew right away it was my topic. I was prepared to fight for it, but no one else seemed to be interested.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The fact that sign l","PeriodicalId":21753,"journal":{"name":"Sign Language Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139977897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}