Linguistic Ethnography and Sign Language Studies

Abstract

This special issue introduces the approach of "linguistic ethno graphy" (LE) in sign language studies. While this term has been adopted by only a handful of sign language researchers in the past few years, LE has existed as a named emerging field for at least twenty years in the United Kingdom and Europe. A number of sign language researchers have done work that we see as falling under the term linguistic ethnography (LE) even when they have not classified their work as such. This introduction for the special issue gives a quick overview of what LE means, how it has emerged as a field, and what kind of sign language research work classifies as LE. In the last part, we also introduce the five articles featured in this special issue and discuss how they fit in the development of LE as a field. What Is LE ?Linguistic ethnography links the micro to the macro, the small to the large, the varied to the routine, the individual to the social, the creative to the constraining, and the historical to the present and to the future. (Copland and Creese 2015, 26) LE focuses on the study of language use in everyday contexts by combining ethnography and linguistics. A key tenet in linguistics is to produce generalizations about language structures and patterns, and in many branches of linguistics, the formal properties of languages are treated independently of their use and meaning in context. Ethnographers, however, focus on the creation of meaning through language

Mouthing constructions in 37 signed languages: typology, ecology and ideology

“…Under-studied languages are particularly at risk because documentation of them is nascent and so, generalisations about them are based on less data. Linguists should consider how they represent under-documented languages, since that representation may be the only impression outsiders have of them (Braithwaite 2020) and Kusters & Hou (2020) propose linguistic ethnography as a check against reductive tendencies in linguistics. An extreme version of addressing this issue would be to exclude lesser-studied sign languages, which would translate into exclusion of many rural sign languages and sign languages of the Global South in comparative research.…”

Unsettling Languages, Unruly Bodyminds: Imaging a Crip Linguistics

“…Here we continue Kusters and Hou (2020)'s discussion of signed language research and linguistic ethnography, which introduces us to the novel ways of understanding linguistics through and by signed language researchers. We also extend Pennycook (2021)'s work on Critical Applied Linguistics.…”

“…In action, cripping linguistics is to uncloak "mainstream representations or practices to reveal able-bodied assumptions and exclusionary effects" and "expose the arbitrary delineation between normal and defective and the negative social ramifications of attempts to homogenize humanity" (Sandahl: 37). Kusters and Hou (2020) point out that the overall pattern in linguistics is for linguists to treat language as separate from the people that produce language. While we have some linguists studying languages that are produced by disability ways of being and knowing in the world, a critical disability lens allows us to highlight problems with the status quo and possibilities for real transformation.…”

Natural and elicited: Sign language corpus linguistics and linguistic ethnography as complementary methodologies

“…Moreover, the ethnographic component within LE research can be used to draw attention to aspects of the social ecologies in which deaf individuals live, such as existing language ideologies, that impact their communicative practices and everyday lives (see, e.g. Goico, 2019a;Kisch, 2012;Kusters, et al, 2020;Moges, 2015;Moriarty-Harrelson, 2017;Moriarty, 2020a).…”