Here’s a great book for every young adult age 11 up, Signing Fun: American Sign Language Vocabulary, Phrases, Games, and Activities. Signing is visual, easy to learn, and fun to use. Author Penny Warner offers 441 useful signs on a variety of favorite topics: activities, animals, fashion, food, holidays, home, outdoors, parties, people, places, play, emotions, school, shopping, travel, plus extra fun signs for especially popular words. Each chapter includes practice sentences using everyday phrases to help new signers learn in a fun way.
Signing Fun provides dozens of entertaining games and activities, too, such as Alphabet Sign, Finger Fun Gesture Guess, Match Signs, Mime and Sign, Oppo-Sign, Picture Hand, Secret Sign, Sign-A-Gories, Signo Bingo, Snap and Sign, and Truth or Sign. It also features a list of tips on how to sign, including how to fingerspell, use numbers, and communicate with deaf people. Whimsical drawings clearly illustrate all of the signs, and a full index lists all of their English meanings for quick reference. Signing Fun is a terrific first book for learning sign while having a great time.
Former golf pro Amy Kellen, recently widowed and the mother of a three-year-old daughter, hoped that her new job as a video relay service interpreter for deaf clients would bring stability into her life. She also wished to stay close to the Deaf community that meant so much to her late husband, who was deaf. Little did she know, however, that her new profession would cause her to witness the vicious killing of a deaf client during a video call. In this way author T. J. Waters thrusts Amy into a murder mystery that catches her up in intersecting worlds of intrigue—Internet scams, burglaries, and presidential politics—all connected through the rich Deaf community in Washington, DC.
During the investigation, Amy meets local detective Mike Seer and Secret Service agent Heath Rasco. Despite Seer’s insistence, she refuses to violate her professional ethics and discuss the content of the fatal call. Agent Rasco, who is hard of hearing, admires her commitment to her deaf clients. Amy admits her own attraction to the agent, but her first concern is to learn more about how her client, a respected deaf political strategist, was killed. Her pursuit causes her to witness two more murders and discover a third. She also finds herself and her daughter the targets of assassins. Secret Signs brings these extraordinary elements together in an electrifying combination that promises to surprise and satisfy.
Only recently have linguists ceased to regard metaphors as mere frills on the periphery of language and begun to recognize them as cornerstones of discourse. Phyllis Wilcox takes this innovation one step further in her fascinating study of metaphors in American Sign Language (ASL).
Such an inquiry has long been obscured by, as Wilcox calls it, “the shroud of iconicity.” ASL’s iconic nature once discouraged people from recognizing it as a language; more recently it has served to confuse linguists examining its metaphors. Wilcox, however, presents methods for distinguishing between icon and metaphor, allowing the former to clarify, not cloud, the latter. “If the iconic influence that surrounds metaphor is set aside, the results will be greater understanding, and interpretations that are less opaque.”
Wilcox concludes her study with a close analysis of the ASL poem, “The Dogs,” by Ella Mae Lentz. In presenting Deaf Americans’, Deaf Germans’, and Deaf Italians’ reactions to the poem, Wilcox manages not only to demonstrate the influence of culture upon metaphors, but also to illuminate the sources of sociopolitical division within the American Deaf community. Metaphor in American Sign Language proves an engrossing read for those interested in linguistics and Deaf culture alike.
Contemporary research has identified resilience — the ability to rebound and learn despite obstacles and adversities — as a key element to success in school. Black Deaf Students: A Model for Educational Success searches out ways to develop, reinforce, and alter the factors that encourage resilience in African American deaf and hard of hearing students. To find the individual characteristics and outside influences that foster educational achievement, author Carolyn E. Williamson conducted extensive interviews with nine African American deaf and hard of hearing adults who succeeded in high school and postsecondary programs.
Until now, the majority of studies of African American deaf and hard of hearing students concentrated upon their underachievement. The only success stories available involved high-achieving African American hearing students. To create an effective model in Black Deaf Students, Williamson focuses on the factors that contributed to her subjects’ successes in postsecondary programs, what they viewed as obstacles and how they overcame them, and their recommendations for facilitating graduation from postsecondary programs. Her work gives “voice” to a group rarely heard in research, which enables readers to view them as a heterogeneous rather than homogeneous group. Their stories provide vital information for parents, school personnel, community stakeholders, and those enrolled in education and mental health preparation programs. In addition, the insights about how these adults succeeded can be useful in facilitating positive outcomes for students who are going into two-year colleges, vocational training, and work settings.
This incisive book explores the current state of educational interpreting and how it is failing deaf students. The contributors, all renowned experts in their field, include former educational interpreters, teachers of deaf students, interpreter trainers, and deaf recipients of interpreted educations.
Educational Interpreting presents the salient issues in three distinct sections. Part 1 focuses on deaf students—their perspectives on having interpreters in the classroom, the language myths that surround them, the accessibility of language to them, and their cognition. Part 2 raises questions about the support and training that interpreters receive from the school systems, the qualifications that many interpreters bring to an interpreted education, and the accessibility of everyday classrooms for deaf students placed in such environments. Part 3 presents a few of the possible suggestions for addressing the concerns of interpreted educations, and focuses primarily on the interpreter.
The contributors discuss the need to (1) define the core knowledge and skills interpreters must have and (2) develop standards of practice and assessment. They also stress that interpreters cannot effect the necessary changes alone; unless and until administrators, parents, teachers, and students recognize the inherent issues of access to education through mediation, little will change for deaf students.
In this intriguing book, renowned sociolinguistics experts explore the importance of discourse analysis, a process that examines patterns of language to understand how users build cooperative understanding in dialogues. It presents discourse analyses of sign languages native to Bali, Italy, England, and the United States.
Studies of internal context review the use of space in ASL to discuss space, how space in BSL is used to “package” complex narrative tasks, how signers choose linguistic tools to structure storytelling, and how affect, emphasis, and comment are added in text telephone conversations. Inquiries into external contexts observe the integration of deaf people and sign language into language communities in Bali, and the language mixing that occurs between deaf parents and their hearing children.
Both external and internal contexts are viewed together, first in an examination of applying internal ASL text styles to teaching written English to Deaf students and then in a consideration of the language choices of interpreters who must shift footing to manage the “interpreter’s paradox.” Storytelling and Conversation casts new light on discourse analysis, which will make it a welcome addition to the sociolinguistics canon.
There is a longstanding need for valid, reliable measurements of interpreting competence. Although rubrics and checklists are commonly used in both academic and employment settings, a review of available rubrics indicates that many do not focus on interpreting performance. Traditional metrics for sign language interpreting often conflate language proficiency with interpreting proficiency. Conflating fundamental aspects of language in use—vocabulary, grammar, and prosody— with fundamental aspects of interpretation—content, intent, and monitoring—compromises the valid assessment of interpreting proficiency. Beyond Equivalence: Reconceptualizing Interpreting Performance Assessment argues for a shift toward more nuanced and evidence-based conceptualizations of interpreting, communication, and meaning to improve the creation and use of rubrics for assessment in interpreter education, certification, and professional development.
This inaugural volume in the Currents series introduces a rubric and accompanying scale, which can be used to assess both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting performance in terms of both process and product, in both signed and spoken language interpreting, and in a variety of settings. Beyond Equivalence offers an appreciation of the multivarious nature of meaning in the interpreting process and presents a new paradigm for the measurement of interpreting proficiency.
This volume brings together a cadre of world-renowned interpreting educators and researchers who conduct a rich exploration of paradigms, both old and new, in interpreter education. They review existing research, explicate past and current practices, and call for a fresh look at the roots of interpreter education in anticipation of the future. Expert commentary accompanies each chapter to provide a starting point for reflection on and discussion of the growing needs in this discipline.
Volume coeditor Christine Monikowski begins by considering how interpreter educators can balance their responsibilities of teaching, practice, and research. Her chapter is accompanied by commentary about the capacity to “academize” what has been thought of as a semi-profession. Helen Tebble shares research on medical interpreting from an applied linguistic perspective. Terry Janzen follows with the impact of linguistic theory on interpretation research methodology. Barbara Shaffer discusses how interpreting theory shapes the interpreter’s role. Elizabeth A. Winston, also a volume coeditor, rounds out this innovative collection with her chapter on infusing evidence-based teaching practices into interpreting education. Noted interpreter educators and researchers also provide an international range of insights in this collection, including Rico Peterson, Beppie van den Bogaerde, Karen Bontempo, Ian Mason, Ester Leung, David Quinto-Pozos, Lorraine Leeson, Jemina Napier, Christopher Stone, Debra Russell, and Claudia Angelelli.
Since Margret A. Winzer wrote her landmark work The History of Special Education, much has transpired in this field, which she again has captured in a remarkable display of scholarship. Winzer’s new study From Integration to Inclusion: A History of Special Education in the 20th Century focuses chiefly on the significant events of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the United States and Canada. Its key dynamics consist of a retrospective overview of the paradigms that emerged from and shaped special education; a critical assessment of past progress and reform, including failures and disappointments; and an analysis of the theoretical diversity within the discipline.
In this stand-alone volume, Winzer juxtaposes the historical study of disability and of special schooling and service provision with reference to broader social systems, protocols, and practices. She documents how prevailing emotional and intellectual climates influence disability and schooling, and also takes into account the social, political, and ideological factors that affect educational theory and practice. Winzer recognizes that reform has been the Zeitgeist of the history of special education. Crucial problems such as defining exceptional conditions and separating them from one another were formulated in contexts organized along moral, theological, legislative, medical, and social dimensions. Many of these reforms failed for various reasons, which Winzer thoroughly explains in her study. Most of these reforms evolved from the long and honorable pedigree that the field of special education has possessed since its earliest antecedents, now admirably brought up to date by this outstanding work.
Margret A. Winzer and Kas Mazurek combine two disciplines in this collection, comparative and international studies and special education, to explore the ways that diverse nations respond to persons who are exceptional. Their learned contributors also explore the changing parameters of special education, employing comparative studies theories and methods to document, explore, discuss, and analyze social and educational inclusion.
International Practices in Special Education: Debates and Challenges travels the world to examine the progress of special education, from inclusive reform in Canada, “education for all” in the United Kingdom, the reform-restructure-renew movement in Poland to the journey from awareness to action in the United States. Chapters describe the challenges and opportunities in the United Arab Emirates; conflicts regarding educational welfare in South Korea; new perspectives on special needs and inclusive education in Japan; facing inclusion in India; making the invisibles visible in Pakistan; problems and prospects in Nigeria; special needs education in Ethiopia; and the developments, prospects, and demands of special education in a rising China. “One step forward, two steps backward” describes Israel’s special education issues. Germany’s special education receives an international perspective; and education policy and pedagogy for students with disabilities in Australia, completes the analyses in this remarkable, comprehensive work of scholarship.
In the late 20th century, a tidal wave of calls for reform and inclusion of special needs students swept over public special education. The current debates over implementing these themes today are authoritatively addressed by 19 distinguished scholars in this thorough volume. Organized into three cohesive sections, it begins with the issues of educational reform and the emerging discourses of disability and integration in the inclusion movement. Respective chapters appraise specific arguments for inclusion and the federal legislation and litigation surrounding and supporting special education.
The second part features the thorny issue of assessment, the technological revolution in special education, and the disposition of teacher training. The third section scrutinizes the inclusion of various populations of students with exceptional needs, particularly how teachers can make an easy transition from ideology to educational practice.
Special Education in the 21st Century sets the standard for extrapolating future directions by wisely weighing classroom practices for different groups and the technical problems of resources, management, social groupings, instructional design, and the supposition that teachers will automatically change to accommodate an even greater diversity of learners.
“She’s got no more business there than a pig has with a Bible.” That’s what her father said when Mary Herring announced that she would be moving to Washington, DC, in late 1942. Recently graduated from the North Carolina School for Black Deaf and Blind Students, Mary had been invited to the nation’s capital by a cousin to see a specialist about her hearing loss. Though nothing could be done about her deafness, Mary quickly proved her father wrong by passing the civil service examination with high marks. Far from Home: Memories of World War II and Afterward, the second installment of her autobiography, describes her life from her move to Washington to the present.
Mary soon became a valued employee for the Navy, maintaining rosters for the many servicemen in war theaters worldwide. Her remarkable gift for detail depicts Washington in meticulous layers, a sleepy Southern town force-grown into a dynamic geopolitical hub. Life as a young woman amid the capital’s Black middle class could be warm and fun, filled with visits from family and friends, and trips home to Iron Mine for tearful, joyous reunions. But the reality of the times was never far off. On many an idyllic afternoon, she and her friends found somber peace in Arlington Cemetery, next to the grave of the sole Unknown Soldier at that time. During an evening spent at the U.S.O., one hearing woman asked how people like her could dance, and Mary answered, “With our feet.” She became a pen pal to several young servicemen, but did not want to know why some of them suddenly stopped writing.
Despite the close friends and good job that she had in Washington, the emotional toll caused Mary to return to her family home in Iron Mine, NC. There, she rejoined her family and resumed her country life. She married and raised four daughters, and recounts the joys and sorrows she experienced through the years, particularly the loss of her parents. Her blend of the gradual transformation of Southern rural life with momentous events such as Hurricane Hazel creates an extraordinary narrative history. The constant in Far from Home remains the steady confidence that Mary Herring Wright has in herself, making her new memoir a perfect companion to her first.
New edition available: Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black and Deaf in the South, 20th Anniversary Edition, ISBN 978-1-944838-58-4
Features a new introduction by scholars Joseph Hill and Carolyn McCaskill
Mary Herring Wright’s memoir adds an important dimension to the current literature in that it is a story by and about an African American deaf child. The author recounts her experiences growing up as a deaf person in Iron Mine, North Carolina, from the 1920s through the 1940s. Her story is unique and historically significant because it provides valuable descriptive information about the faculty and staff of the North Carolina school for Black deaf and blind students from the perspective of a student as well as a student teacher. In addition, this engrossing narrative contains details about the curriculum, which included a week-long Black History celebration where students learned about important Blacks such as Madame Walker, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and George Washington Carver. It also describes the physical facilities as well as the changes in those facilities over the years. In addition, Sounds Like Home occurs over a period of time that covers two major events in American history, the Depression and World War II.
Wright’s account is one of enduring faith, perseverance, and optimism. Her keen observations will serve as a source of inspiration for others who are challenged in their own ways by life’s obstacles.
The Politics of Deafness embarks upon a post-modern examination of the search for identity in deafness and its relationship to the prevalent hearing culture that has marginalized Deaf people. Author Owen Wrigley plainly states his intention to disrupt “normal” thought about the popularly considered condition of deafness as a physical deficiency. From his decade of experience working and living in the Deaf community in Thailand, he uses wide-ranging examples to go beyond disputing conventional theorists for their interpretation of deafness as the lack of a sensory function. By calling attention to the different lingual potential created by the instant visual expression of cyberspace, he explodes orthodox conceptualization of the nature of language as serially ordered and dependent upon sound.
In bold style, this provocative work poses the relationship of the bodies physical and mental of Deaf people as subject to a form of “colonialism” by the dominant Hearing culture. It proceeds to expose and attack presumptions and practices that derive from and descend upon deaf bodies. Related analysis also addresses tensions little noted in the current literature on deafness and on the popular move to reconstitute Deafness as a global culture.
Through displacement of logistical anchors, ironic stances, and disconcerting perspectives, The Politics of Deafness practices a form of de-naturalization to demand space within and between the normalizing frames of daily lives. By doing so, it offers an insightful and intriguing perspective on the meanings of Deafness, the politics of Deaf identity, and what it costs to be “unusual.”
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