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2011 PCRID Annual Conference Keynote
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Dr. Ted Supalla opens this year’s conference with his keynote address entitled “Reframing ASL as a Heritage Language" on Saturday, November 5, 2011. This 1.5 hour event qualifies for RID CEU credits. Imagine the experience of a flourishing ASL community more than a century ago. Written languages have thousands of years of written prose; we are now in a time of new ways of engaging with visual/tactile languages. Ted Supalla will share a database repository for historical corpus research online at the Sign Language Research Center at the University of Rochester. These historical sources at the present time include the following:
Fourteen National Association of the Deaf Gallaudet Lecture Films made in 1910-1921; The 1918 J. Schuyler Long dictionary of ASL: A manual of the Sign Language; the 1923 Higgins dictionary; and the 1923 Michaels dictionary.
Rarely do ASL interpreters have the opportunity to catch a glimpse into the lives of American Deaf people over 100 years ago. ASL/English interpreters and Deaf community members will delight in going back in time to witness a by-gone era. Documentary films show the heritage language of Deaf ASL ancestors. This promises to be a fun way to learn about the earliest captured signing on film ever!
Following the keynote is a 90-minute hands-on workshop, where participants bring a laptop/ipad and learn how to go online to this free database. Ted along with Patty Clark, co-investigator, will demonstrate and help individuals navigate the online repository for your own research interests.
About the Keynote Presenter: Ted Supalla
Ted Supalla is a Deaf scholar who has been doing research for almost 30 years. He is currently an Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics as well as Director of the undergraduate American Sign Language Program and the Sign Language Research Center at the University of Rochester, New York.
His main areas of research are in the domain of the nature of structural properties, the universals of language, examining the evolution from nonlinguistic to linguistic, from gestures to “home sign” systems to fully formed sign languages, looking at how linguistic properties appear in the evolution; grammar in the early stages and lastly using fMRI studies asking which parts of the brain are activated during visual-gestural language processing.
He has co-produced a documentary film, “Profile of Charles Krauel: A Deaf Filmmaker,” and has co-authored with Patty Clark, a book in press entitled, “Sign Language Archeology: Understanding History and Evolution of American Sign Language.”
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