Reflective Engagement Series
November 15, 2013-Deaf Community Films Workshop Series and Film Showcase Commemorating George Veditz and Georgetown University Pioneers in 100 Years of Sign Language Documentation
This groundbreaking program rested on engaging the public by making use of advanced technology to present complex topics in a stimulating, interactive, and comprehensible way. The Deaf Community Films Workshop series on sign language humanities honored three Georgetown sign language scholars and built on their record of to re-establish broad-based linguistic and social science research on sign languages and deaf communities at Georgetown with the goal of raising public and policymaker awareness of the rich history of sign language in America as a foundation for more informed public discussion and policy.
Growing up as a hearing son of Deaf parents, John Schuchman, a graduate of Georgetown Law School, developed oral history interview techniques for use with deaf persons who use sign language. His publication of Hollywood Speaks, Deafness and the Film Entertainment Industry and Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe, have provided infrastructure and a foundation for humanities research in sign language communities.
Born deaf to Deaf parents, Barbara Kannapell (Georgetown Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Bilingualism) advocated for human rights among deaf persons and promoted bilingual education for deaf children. Throughout her career she has taught, published, and presented widely on deaf history, cross-cultural communication, language choice, and language policy. The field of interpreting for the deaf is a spin-off of this advocacy movement, and colleges and universities have begun to recognize ASL as a legitimate subject for study.
Dennis Cokely (Georgetown PhD in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics) pioneered an ASL teacher-training text and model curriculum. He also served as the president of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf and was instrumental in refining the organization's certification and testing program.
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Two events for Spring 2014- Woodward/Sandler/Padden Lecture and Lucas Lecture
Moving on in the Georgetown pantheon, planned activities also include a two-part series of lecture presentations in early Spring, 2014 by leading scholars in the sign language field, all of whom have received their early training at Georgetown University.
February 14th, 2014, 3-5 pm, Linguistics Conference Room, Poultney Hall Global Sign Language Research
Sociolinguistic insight into the earlier thinking of the 20th century in shaping language planning policies was made possible by James Woodward (Georgetown PhD in sociolinguistics). He has gone on to play an instrumental role in documenting the sign languages of Asia, and in creating programs to empower and train Deaf native linguists in this region in the creation of Sign Language dictionaries of their native languages. The public has also been fascinated with media coverage on the work of Wendy Sandler and Carol Padden (both of whom attended Georgetown as undergraduates majoring in Linguistics), who have studied the emergence of an indigenous sign language among deaf Bedouin villagers in the Negev Desert of the Middle East, documenting its natural evolution. Such pioneering research has ultimately linked sign language research with even broader research on human gesture, language origins, and species capability for language.
March 7, 2014, 3-5 pm, Linguistics Conference Room, Poultney Hall: “What Variation Tells Us about the Structure of Sign Languages”
A body of work by Ceil Lucas (Georgetown PhD in Sociolinguistics) has shed light on the social and language-internal factors at work in language change and dialect divergence and convergence. By studying the evolution and history of a particular ASL dialect (such as Black ASL), missing links in sign language genesis and diversity can be re-forged.
Growing up as a hearing son of Deaf parents, John Schuchman, a graduate of Georgetown Law School, developed oral history interview techniques for use with deaf persons who use sign language. His publication of Hollywood Speaks, Deafness and the Film Entertainment Industry and Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe, have provided infrastructure and a foundation for humanities research in sign language communities.
Born deaf to Deaf parents, Barbara Kannapell (Georgetown Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Bilingualism) advocated for human rights among deaf persons and promoted bilingual education for deaf children. Throughout her career she has taught, published, and presented widely on deaf history, cross-cultural communication, language choice, and language policy. The field of interpreting for the deaf is a spin-off of this advocacy movement, and colleges and universities have begun to recognize ASL as a legitimate subject for study.
Dennis Cokely (Georgetown PhD in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics) pioneered an ASL teacher-training text and model curriculum. He also served as the president of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf and was instrumental in refining the organization's certification and testing program.
More information
Two events for Spring 2014- Woodward/Sandler/Padden Lecture and Lucas Lecture
Moving on in the Georgetown pantheon, planned activities also include a two-part series of lecture presentations in early Spring, 2014 by leading scholars in the sign language field, all of whom have received their early training at Georgetown University.
February 14th, 2014, 3-5 pm, Linguistics Conference Room, Poultney Hall Global Sign Language Research
Sociolinguistic insight into the earlier thinking of the 20th century in shaping language planning policies was made possible by James Woodward (Georgetown PhD in sociolinguistics). He has gone on to play an instrumental role in documenting the sign languages of Asia, and in creating programs to empower and train Deaf native linguists in this region in the creation of Sign Language dictionaries of their native languages. The public has also been fascinated with media coverage on the work of Wendy Sandler and Carol Padden (both of whom attended Georgetown as undergraduates majoring in Linguistics), who have studied the emergence of an indigenous sign language among deaf Bedouin villagers in the Negev Desert of the Middle East, documenting its natural evolution. Such pioneering research has ultimately linked sign language research with even broader research on human gesture, language origins, and species capability for language.
March 7, 2014, 3-5 pm, Linguistics Conference Room, Poultney Hall: “What Variation Tells Us about the Structure of Sign Languages”
A body of work by Ceil Lucas (Georgetown PhD in Sociolinguistics) has shed light on the social and language-internal factors at work in language change and dialect divergence and convergence. By studying the evolution and history of a particular ASL dialect (such as Black ASL), missing links in sign language genesis and diversity can be re-forged.