front cover of Gesture in Multiparty Interaction
Gesture in Multiparty Interaction
Emily Shaw
Gallaudet University Press, 2018
Gesture in Multiparty Interaction confronts the competing views that exist regarding gesture’s relationship to language. In this work, Emily Shaw examines embodied discourses in American Sign Language and spoken English and seeks to establish connections between sign language and co-speech gesture. By bringing the two modalities together, Shaw illuminates the similarities between certain phenomena and presents a unified analysis of embodied discourse that more clearly captures gesture’s connection to language as a whole.
​       Shaw filmed Deaf and hearing participants playing a gesture-based game as part of a social game night. Their interactions were then studied using discourse analysis to see whether and how Deaf and hearing people craft discourses through the use of their bodies. This volume examines gesture, not just for its iconic, imagistic qualities, but also as an interactive resource in signed and spoken discourse. In addition, Shaw addresses the key theoretical barriers that prevent a full accounting of gesture’s interface with signed and spoken language. Her study pushes further the notion that language is fundamentally embodied.
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front cover of A Historical and Etymological Dictionary of American Sign Language
A Historical and Etymological Dictionary of American Sign Language
The Origin and Evolution of More Than 500 Signs
Emily Shaw
Gallaudet University Press, 2014
The story of how American Sign Language (ASL) came to be is almost mythic. In the early 19th century, a hearing American reverend, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, met a Deaf French educator, Laurent Clerc, who agreed to come to the United States and help establish the first school in America to use sign language to teach deaf children. The trail of ASL’s development meanders at this point. No documentation of early ASL was published until the late 19th century, almost seven decades after the school’s founding. While there are many missing pieces in the history of America’s sign language, plenty of data exist regarding ASL etymology. This book is the first to collect all known texts featuring illustrations of early ASL and historical images of French Sign Language—langue des signes française (LSF)—and link them with contemporary signs.

     Through rigorous study of historical texts, field research in communities throughout France and the U.S., and an in-depth analysis of the cultural groups responsible for the lexicon, authors Emily Shaw and Yves Delaporte present a compelling and detailed account of the origins of over 500 ASL signs, including regional variations. Organized alphabetically by equivalent English glosses, each sign is accompanied by a succinct description of its origin and an LSF sign where appropriate. Featuring an introductory chapter on the history of the development of ASL and the etymological methodology used by the authors, this reference resource breaks new ground in the study of America’s sign language.
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front cover of The Second International Symposium on Signed Language Interpretation and Translation Research
The Second International Symposium on Signed Language Interpretation and Translation Research
Selected Papers
Danielle I. J. Hunt
Gallaudet University Press, 2020
The Second International Symposium on Signed Language Interpretation and Translation Research was a rare opportunity for hearing and Deaf students, researchers, educators, and practitioners to come together and learn about current research in Interpretation and Translation Studies. These selected papers are comprised of research conducted in places such as Australia, Flanders, France, and Ghana, creating a volume that is international in scope. Editors Danielle I. J. Hunt and Emily Shaw have collected papers that represent the advances in the depth and diversity of knowledge in the field of signed language interpretation and translation research. Chapter topics include the use of haptic signals when interpreting for Deafblind people, the role of French Deaf translators during the 2015 Paris terror attacks, and Deaf employees’ perspectives on interpreting in the workplace.

Signed chapter summaries will be available on the Gallaudet University Press YouTube channel upon publication.
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