The Paradox of International Sign: The Importance of Deaf-Hearing Encounters for Deaf-Deaf Communication across Sign Language Borders
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Standing in the lobby of a hotel in Washington, DC, waiting to check in among a crowd of deaf people from many different countries, Anja Hiddinga’s ten-year-old deaf son became friendly with a man from Egypt. They chatted along, although the little one did not know any Egyptian Sign Language or American Sign Language (ASL), and it was not Sign Language of the Netherlands they were conversing in either. In communicating back and forth, the conversation seemed to develop quite easily. Other interactions across sign language borders in that lobby were similar, with deaf people arriving from all over the world to attend the Deaf Way II conference and festival. The week of performances, lectures, and other events that followed was impressive for many reasons but particularly because of this very circumstance, the relative ease with which deaf people from different countries seemed to interact with one another in international sign. Equally impressive is the process of interpretation to and from international sign for the benefit of multilingual deaf audiences at other international (deaf) conferences.
En: Friedner, M. y Kusters, A. (2015): It's a small world: international deaf spaces and encounters, pp. 59-69.