Aldersson, Russell;
(2021)
An analysis of how metalinguistic terms are realised in British Sign Language in the context of teaching English to deaf learners.
Doctoral thesis (Ed.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This study set out to investigate how teachers of English to deaf sign language users refer to metalanguage in the classroom, and more specifically, how these terms might be realised in British Sign Language (BSL). The study was structured in two phases. The first and longer phase of the study involved an initial round of interviews and a targeted elicitation task using a word list of 87 metalinguistic terms. How the participants expressed the terms in BSL was captured on video and analysed using ELAN, a multi-media annotation software designed for the creation of time-aligned text annotations to audio and video files. The elicited ways of expressing metalinguistic terms were subsequently re-created by two deaf presenters, unconnected to the study, for the purposes of sharing the data back to the participants to prepare for the second phase of the study that sought participants’ reflections and observations. The data evidenced considerable linguistic variation and motivation in terms of how metalinguistic terms were articulated. Many variants evidenced strong visually motivated form-meaning mapping (iconicity and transparency), while some were more arbitrary in nature. Some variants demonstrated borrowing from English, through fingerspelling, loan translations and mouthing. Others provided evidence of semantic change (broadening) by using signs from other contexts, and some terms were realised using multiple signs that served as an explanation of the meaning. A considerable number of variants evidenced multiple features/motivations. The investigation was framed as practitioner research and as a collaborative enquiry. In addition to exploring the issue under investigation, the study simultaneously set out to establish a community of practice comprising of teachers of English to sign language users, willing to work together as a collaborative enquiry group to explore future research.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ed.D |
| Title: | An analysis of how metalinguistic terms are realised in British Sign Language in the context of teaching English to deaf learners |
| Event: | UCL |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10140171 |
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