The eyes have it: Technologies of automobility in sign language
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Elizabeth Keating,
Elizabeth Keating (b. 1957) is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin 〈ekeating@mail.utexas.edu〉. Her research interests include language and culture, and language and technology. Her publications include
Power sharing: Language, rank, gender, and social space in Pohnpei, Micronesia (1998); “Habits and innovations: Designing language for new, technologically mediated sociality” (2006); “Participation cues: Coordinating activity and collaboration in complex online gaming worlds” (with C. Sunakawa, 2010); and “Sensory impairment” (with R. Neill Hadder, 2010).
and
Gene Mirus,
Gene Mirus (b. 1969) is an assistant professor at Gallaudet University 〈gene.mirus@gallaudet.edu〉. His research interests include signed language corpus, L1/L2 sign language acquisition, and sign language poetics. His publications include “Examining interactions across language modalities: Deaf children and hearing peers at school” (with E. Keating, 2003); “New technologies and minority language communities: The deaf community, visual virtual language and computer-mediated communication” (with E. Keating, 2003); “Signing in the car: Some issues in language and context” (with E. Keating, 2004); and “Cybersign: Impacts of new communication technologies on space and language” (with E. Keating & T. Edwards, 2008).
Abstract
Cars present an unusual environment for human interaction and communication. For deaf people using sign language, a visual language, the car is far from ideal for establishing and maintaining conversation. This is due to the visual pre-occupation of the driver with watching the road, manual preoccupation with maneuvering the car, and the layout of seats for passengers. This article describes and analyzes particular conversational interactions of signers to show how deaf signers innovatively and creatively manage to adapt their signing in the car for effective signed interaction. Signers manipulate particular aspects of the car environment, including mirrors and seats, they use the body in particular ways to accommodate to visual perception boundaries, and they shift distribution of meaning to both manual signs and to aspects of the immediate physical environment. They also distribute the work of attending to actions both within and outside the vehicle. Signers thus both adapt language to the context and adapt the context to language, showing important ways that technologies and mobility impact language practices.
About the authors
Elizabeth Keating (b. 1957) is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin 〈ekeating@mail.utexas.edu〉. Her research interests include language and culture, and language and technology. Her publications include Power sharing: Language, rank, gender, and social space in Pohnpei, Micronesia (1998); “Habits and innovations: Designing language for new, technologically mediated sociality” (2006); “Participation cues: Coordinating activity and collaboration in complex online gaming worlds” (with C. Sunakawa, 2010); and “Sensory impairment” (with R. Neill Hadder, 2010).
Gene Mirus (b. 1969) is an assistant professor at Gallaudet University 〈gene.mirus@gallaudet.edu〉. His research interests include signed language corpus, L1/L2 sign language acquisition, and sign language poetics. His publications include “Examining interactions across language modalities: Deaf children and hearing peers at school” (with E. Keating, 2003); “New technologies and minority language communities: The deaf community, visual virtual language and computer-mediated communication” (with E. Keating, 2003); “Signing in the car: Some issues in language and context” (with E. Keating, 2004); and “Cybersign: Impacts of new communication technologies on space and language” (with E. Keating & T. Edwards, 2008).
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
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- Vers une sémiotique du médium : Outil, objet, pratique En guise d'introduction
- La photographie du témoin : Où la proximité rencontre la vérité
- La sémiotique face à la médiation du discours religieux
- Le support comme limite et les limites du support
- Le net communautaire : Quand la relation fait sens
- Une sémiotique du medium pour explorer le communicationnel
- Meaning in motion: Sharing the car, sharing the drive
- What it means to change lanes: Actions, emotions and wayfinding in the family car
- Movement in action: Initiating social navigation in cars
- Interaction as distraction in driving: A body of evidence
- “Uh-oh, we were going there”: Environmentally occasioned noticings of trouble in in-car interaction
- Talking and driving: Multiactivity in the car
- Car talk: Integrating texts, bodies, and changing landscapes
- The eyes have it: Technologies of automobility in sign language
- Inhabiting the family-car: Children-passengers and parents-drivers on the school run
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Vers une sémiotique du médium : Outil, objet, pratique En guise d'introduction
- La photographie du témoin : Où la proximité rencontre la vérité
- La sémiotique face à la médiation du discours religieux
- Le support comme limite et les limites du support
- Le net communautaire : Quand la relation fait sens
- Une sémiotique du medium pour explorer le communicationnel
- Meaning in motion: Sharing the car, sharing the drive
- What it means to change lanes: Actions, emotions and wayfinding in the family car
- Movement in action: Initiating social navigation in cars
- Interaction as distraction in driving: A body of evidence
- “Uh-oh, we were going there”: Environmentally occasioned noticings of trouble in in-car interaction
- Talking and driving: Multiactivity in the car
- Car talk: Integrating texts, bodies, and changing landscapes
- The eyes have it: Technologies of automobility in sign language
- Inhabiting the family-car: Children-passengers and parents-drivers on the school run
