The next seminar in the Linguistics Circle seminar series is entitled 'Writing the Moving Body: Bivalency and Simultaneity Between Codes and Modalities in a German School for the Deaf'. The seminar will be held on Friday 6 May at 17:30 in Hall C, M.A. Vassalli Conference Centre - Gateway Building (GWHC). The speaker is Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway, Oberlin, Ohio, US.
Abstract
In a German classroom for deaf students, in addition to learning to write using the Roman script, pupils write both German and German Sign Language using SignWriting, a movement writing system. One effect of inscribing these both of these languages in sound-based and movement-based scripts is to heighten students’ metalinguistic awareness of bivalencies between these codes (e.g., attracting attention to semiotic forms that occur in both languages) and simultaneities between the modalities through which they are produced (e.g., attracting attention to visual and kinetic modalities inherent in producing spoken German as well as the ways in which DGS signing practice can produce sound). This talk draws on ethnographic research conducted in 2010 and 2012 to analyse the ways in which this unusual pedagogical approach allows students who enter the class with highly diverse linguistic repertoires (in terms of the languages they use and the modalities through which they are able to access language), to draw on the semiotic forms they control in their efforts to acquire new linguistic resources.
