“It is natural, really deaf signing” – script development for fictional programmes involving sign languages
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Annelies Kusters
und
Jordan Fenlon
Abstract
Historically, fictional productions which use sign language have often begun with scripts that use the written version of a spoken language. This can be a challenge for deaf actors as they must translate the written word to a performed sign language text. Here, we explore script development in Small World, a television comedy which attempted to avoid this challenge by using improvisation to create their script. The creators framed this process as a response to what they saw as “inauthentic” sign language use on television, foregrounding the need to present “natural signing” on the screen. According to them, “natural signing” is not influenced by an English script but is varied language use that reflect a character’s background, their settings, and the characters that they interact with. We describe how this authentic language use is derived primarily from improvisation and is in competition with other demands, which are textual (e.g., the need to ensure comedic value), studio-based (e.g., operating within the practical confines of the studio), or related to audience design (e.g., the need to ensure comprehensibility). We discuss how the creative team negotiated the tension between the quest for authentic language use and characteristics of the genre, medium, and audience.
Funding source: Arts and Humanities Research Council 10.13039/501100000267
Award Identifier / Grant number: Creative Multilingualism (Open World Research Initiative, 2016–2020)
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by Creative Multilingualism as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Open World Research Initiative (OWRI). We also thank all the participants who agreed to take part in this study and Erin Moriarty and the reviewers for their valuable feedback.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- English in a multilingual ecology: “structures of feeling” in South and Central Asia
- “It is natural, really deaf signing” – script development for fictional programmes involving sign languages
- Translation, transcultural remembrance and pandemic: a covert transediting of the Great Influenza memory for lessons to combat COVID-19 in Chinese online media
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- English in a multilingual ecology: “structures of feeling” in South and Central Asia
- “It is natural, really deaf signing” – script development for fictional programmes involving sign languages
- Translation, transcultural remembrance and pandemic: a covert transediting of the Great Influenza memory for lessons to combat COVID-19 in Chinese online media
- Knowledge negotiation and interactional power: epistemic stances in Arabic–Swedish antenatal care consultations
- Lifting the voices of Spanish-speaking Kansans: a community-engaged approach to health equity
