The expressive language tasks of the Test of Narrative Language (Gillam & Pearson, 2004) were administered to eleven deaf, native signers and fifteen English-speaking hearing children who were between the ages of six and ten years old. These tasks were administered to determine the appropriateness of this measure for use with special populations and bring to light new information about children's narrative development and the differences in the language modalities of these two groups. Also, the application of this information on future testing of deaf populations is examined. The eleven native signers came from a single residential school for the deaf, and all had deaf parents. The fifteen hearing children were recruited from a private school and through associates of the primary investigator. The tasks were administered according to the TNL manual's protocol and script, with the primary investigator speaking English for the hearing children and a native signer using American Sign Language for the deaf children. Their narratives in these tasks were coded according to the standards of the test and examined: factual story comprehension, story retell abilities (and inclusion of target terms), story generation from a picture sequence, and story generation from a single picture scene. This study found that though the hearing group outperformed the deaf group on each task's raw score, the specific subcategories of "Grammar" and "Story" from the picture sequence-based story generation task, and the "Characters" and "Vocabulary and Grammar" coding of the single picture-based generation task showed ASL users as having stronger narrative skills as a whole. Specific target items from the story retell also proved differentially problematic for the ASL group and should be altered in future utilization of the TNL with deaf children. In the future, the need for appropriate and representative testing of deaf children's narrative skills should take a higher priority, and greater understanding of the differences between ASL and English will be desired for both test creators and those testing deaf children. / text

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Taking an anthropological perspective, this dissertation focuses on a small segment of the American deaf community that uses Cued Speech by examining the nature of the cuers' linguistic repertoire. Multimodality is at issue for this dissertation. It can affect the ways of speaking or more appropriately, ways of communicating (specifically, signing or cueing). Speech and Cued Speech rely on different modalities by using different sets of articulators. Hearing adults do not learn Cued Speech the same way deaf children do. English-speaking, hearing adult learners can base their articulation of Cued Speech on existing knowledge of their spoken language. However, because deaf children do not have natural access to spoken language phonology aurally, they tend to learn Cued Speech communicatively through day-to-day interactions with family members and deaf cueing peers. I am interested in examining the construct of cuers' linguistic repertoire. Which parts of their linguistic repertoire model after signed languages? Which parts of their linguistic repertoire model after spoken languages? Cuers' phonological, syntactal and lexical repertoire largely depends on several factors including social class, geography, and the repertoire of hearing cuers whom they interacted with on a daily basis. For most deaf cuers, hearing cuers including parents, transliterators and educators serve as a model for the English language. Hearing cuers play a role as unwitting gatekeepers for the maintenance of 'proper' cueing among deaf users. For this dissertation, I seek to study the effects of modality on how cuers manage their linguistic repertoire. The statement of the problem is this: Cued Speech is visual and made with the hands like ASL but is ultimately a code for the English language. The research questions to be examined in this dissertation include how cuers adapt an invented system for their purposes, what adjustments they make to Cued Speech, how Cued Speech interacts with gesture, and what language play in Cued Speech looks like. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Science in Audiology

Sign pattern theory examines what can be said about a matrix if one knows the signs of all or some of its entries but not the exact values. Since all we know is the sign of each entry, we can write these sign patterns as matrices whose entries come from the set {+1, -1, 0, #}, where # is used for an unknown sign. Semirings satisfy all properties of rings with unity except the existence of additive inverses. The set {+1, -1, 0, #} can be viewed as a commutative semiring in natural way. In the thesis, we give a semiring version of the Cayley-Dickson construction which allows one to construct the sign pattern semiring from the Boolean semiring. We use tools from Boolean matrices to study sign nonsingular (SNS) matrices. We also investigate different notions of rank of matrices over semirings. For these rank functions we simplify proofs of classical inequalities for the sum and the product of matrices using the semiring versions of the Cauchy-Binet and Laplace theorems. For matrices over the sign pattern semiring, the minimum rank of the sign pattern is compared with the other versions of the rank. We also characterize irreducible powerful sign pattern matrices and investigate the period and base of an SNS matrix.

INTRODUCTION Although the controversy surrounding the medium of education for deaf individuals rages on, language professionals including educators are now realising that literacy is the single most important factor in determining the successful education of the deaf child. The medium of education selected, should thus ultimately foster literacy skills. Supporters of oralism (referring to the principal that Deaf people should learn to commnicate by speech and lipreading without the use of Sign Language) claim that with recent technological advances eg cochlear implants, the ability of even the profoundly deaf child to obtain spoken language fluency, has never been better. Oralists maintain that because the majority of the population is comprised of hearing individuals, educators are morally obliged to enforce the teaching of society�s dominant language as first priority as it is only by acquiring spoken language that the deaf child will be able to fully integrate himself in society (Gregory, Hartley, 1991). In contrast, supporters of a signed language as a medium of education argue that signed language is the best language model that is within the biological grasp of the deaf child � it is easily and naturally acquired (Lane, Hoffmeister & Bahan 1996). When used as a medium of education a signed language can impart new knowledge to the learner as well as knowledge about other languages. With first language proficiency in signed language the acquisition of second language skills i.e. literacy skills is facilitated. Deaf high school graduates (if they graduate at all) have literacy skills equivalent to roughly a third or fourth grade level. (Holcomb, Peyton & Kreeft 1992). This frightning statistic holds true for the deaf population of South Africa. Poor literacy skills resulted in the Deaf being trapped in a vicious circle of powerlessness, dependence and marginality, consequently depriving them of their dignity and rightful place in society (Carver, 1990). Recent researchers are of the opinion that the Deaf share similar language backgrounds and literacy challenges to other minority groups and that poor literacy skills can possibly be attributed to linguistic, cultural and educational factors. Hence the importance of determining the best language medium for the deaf child to receive his education. Deaf literacy is an attainable goal. What now needs to be determined is whether a signed language or a spoken language as a medium of pre-school education is the catalyst for initiating and facilitating literacy skills, which will ultimately enable the Deaf to reclaim their power, independence, dignity and rightful place in society, thus enabling them to actively contribute towards the economic and social growth of the country.

SUMMARY The primary purpose of this research was to determine what role mother-tongue teaching plays in the relationship between intelligence and academic performance. At present, English enjoys both national and international status, and as a result of this, this language is sometimes the only language in which the majority of South Africans want their children educated. Parents believe that their children need to have a command of English in order to be able to cope with international demands that they may be faced with in the future and that skill in the English language will offer their children access to training, work opportunities and economic freedom. The teaching language in our schools is a matter of great concern as well as a source of conflict between different language groups. Internationally it is accepted that mother-tongue teaching is the most effective form of teaching. The Constitution also stipulates that every person is entitled to receive teaching in the language of his choice, where this is practicable. Researchers recommend that a learner should use his mother tongue as medium of education from the commencement of the school career and that this should continue for as long as it is practically possible. Mother-tongue teaching would then at least be present during the commencement phase of the school career. In the light of all of the above, the purpose of this study was to determine whether learners who are taught in their mother tongue perform better academically than those who receive teaching in their second language. Intelligence is a factor that could have an effect upon the latter. During this study the emphasis was therefore mainly placed on the relationship between academic performance and intelligence. Academic performance is usually expressed as a percentage and in the school it is expected that learners with a high intelligence also attain high achievements. Although there are several factors that play a role in academic performance, intellectual ability is the single most important contributing factor in academic performance. Language, however, plays an important role in the intellectual development of the child. The literature indicates a close relationship between language and thoughts. Language and intelligence are inter-dependent. A learner�s verbal ability is mainly developed by his verbal assimilation, because concepts are taught to the learner through his verbal comprehension. Therefore, the better his verbal comprehension, the better he will conceptualise and the better he will use his abilities. If a learner experiences language problems, this will have a direct influence on his abilities. With regard to this latter statement, the assumption can be made that if a learner experiences problems in the second language it will negatively influence his abilities and more specifically his academic performance. The research group for this study consisted of 138 Grade 2 learners (from schools in Bloemfontein). All of the Grade 2 learners from these two schools were involved, but for various reasons not everyone took part in the research project. The selection of the schools was done on the grounds of the teaching language used and the distribution of non-mother-tongue speakers in these schools. The intelligence of the learners was determined by means of the Group Test for seven to eight-year-olds. Their academic performance was determined by the latest results in Literacy and Numeracy and the average percentage of these two subjects was used as an indication of the average academic performance of the learners. The results indicated that mother-tongue teaching was certainly a moderator in the relationship between intelligence and academic performance of the Grade 2 learners in the study. The learners who received mother-tongue teaching tended to perform better academically than those who did not receive mother-tongue teaching. These results were confirmed by the literature and indicate that learners succeed up to 6% better when taught in their mother tongue. The results of the study show that parents should be careful if they wish to have their children taught in a second language in the commencement phase of education. Key words: Mother-tongue teaching, second language teaching, commencement phase of education, intelligence, academic performance.

A number of narratives in the Hebrew Bible deal with seemingly inappropriate behaviors such as drunkenness and prostitution. These stories include, Noah's drunkenness after the flood in Genesis 9:18-29, Lot's drinking of wine with his two daughters in Genesis 19:31- 38 and the narrative of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38:1-30. The unseemly aspects of these stories are the more puzzling because the major protagonists are often characters who are portrayed as models of righteous behavior. Noah, for example, is the only character in the Bible who is referred to as a righteous ( צ××ק ) man (Genesis 6:9 and Genesis 7:1). Yet, after he leaves the ark after the flood, his first action is to plant a vineyard and to get drunk. The biblical narrative does not dwell on Noah's inappropriate behavior. Similarly, in Genesis 19:31-38, the Bible describes the actions of Lot and his two daughters after the destruction of Sodom. The two daughters make their father drunk and commit incest with him so that they can conceive children. In this narrative, the act of drunkenness is compounded by the sin of incest. Yet this provocative biblical narrative is elliptical in style giving no judgment of their behavior. The story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38:1-30 is also a puzzling moral narrative. Tamar intentionally deceives her father-in law by impersonating a prostitute and Judah engages a woman who he considers to be a prostitute. Moreover, he and his daughter-in-law commit what appears to be incest. This seemingly inappropriate behavior on the part of royal ancestors creates an intolerable tension within the narrative that calls upon the reader for meaningful resolution. These provocative and perplexing biblical narratives invite and even demand interpretation. This study explores how ancient interpreters provided new meanings to these ancient texts. Despite their varied cultural and historical backgrounds, this study details how these interpreters shared common perceptions about the underlying hermeneutic principles of biblical interpretation. These include the ideas that the Bible is a cryptic document, that scripture is fundamentally a relevant text and that the Bible is harmonious and divinely inspired. While the narrative features, themes and canonical contexts of these three biblical stories guided early Jewish interpreters to some natural conclusions, this study shows how these interpreters also made hermeneutic decisions at critical junctures in the biblical narrative and sometimes reconfigured the story's plot and characters to correspond with their understanding of its central message. Their elaborations and clarifications therefore restricted and channeled the meaning of the biblical narrative in distinctive directions. The study focuses on the literary and rhetorical strategies and received exegetical traditions that influenced the interpreters' understandings of the narrative. The striking differences between the treatments also stem from the very active nature of the interpreters' engagement with the biblical narrative, which included reshaping the narrative into forms capable of expressing the values and ideals of different types of ancient Judaism. The study also explores how ancient interpreters and particularly the authors of early midrashic literature, established standards of rabbinic morality by reshaping and developing the early biblical narrative. Their interpretations of the biblical narrative may in fact offer an assessment of what the early Rabbis considered moral behavior. While drunkenness is clearly denounced by the Rabbis, we find much more nuanced postures about the evils of prostitution. The introduction of exegetical motifs such as the Messiah and Godly intervention in their interpretations ensured that these somewhat puzzling narratives were interjected with values and religious ideals with which their readers could identify, thereby enabling scripture to retain its normative and vital function within these living religious communities.

The study investigates the reasons for the non- implementation of multilingual policies and plans with special reference to South Africaâs language policy and planning implementation scenario. The study identifies four categories of explanations for the non-implementation of multilingual policies and plans in South Africa, namely political; economic; sociolinguistic; and theoretic explanations. Of particular interest is the adequacy of these explanations in explaining the non- implementation of multilingual policies and plans in South Africa. Chapter 1 introduces the study, discounts political, economic and sociolinguistic explanations as inadequate in explaining the non- implementation of multilingual policies and plans in South Africa and establishes the theoretic category as the core category to explain the non- implementation of multilingual policies and plans in South Africa. The chapter provides a preliminary review of language planning literature that explores the inadequacy of language planning theory in providing approaches that can be used to facilitate multilingual policy and planning implementation as well as statement of the research problem and questions, the aim and objectives of the study, overview of research methodology and outline of the thesis. Chapter 2 provides the background to the study. The chapter discusses the macro framework for language policy and language planning in South Africa as provided by the Constitution. The chapter elaborates on South Africaâs constitutional language developments as from the early 1990s and the socio-political and historical contexts that led to the evolution of the 1993 Interim Constitution and the 1996 Constitution. The chapter elaborates on the theoretical, ideological and discourse foundations of both the 1993 Interim Constitution and the 1996 Constitution and points out that the multilingual dispensation envisioned by the 1996 Constitution is in tandem with the project of transformative constitutionalism and advanced cultural politics espoused by the Constitution. The chapter concludes by pointing out that the obligations imposed by the Constitution with respect to language in South Africa must be fulfilled. Its attendant upon language planning actors in South Africa to formulate approaches that can be used to facilitate multilingual policy and planning implementation based on plausible theoretical premises. Chapter 3 discusses the research methodology. The research method used in the study is Grounded Theory Method. The chapter elaborates on the appropriateness of Grounded Theory Method as a method for the development of approaches from qualitative data and how the method was applied to the three elements of the study, namely, literature review; the development of an alternative approach to multilingual policy and planning implementation; and the case study. Chapter 4 reviews literature on language planning theory and models using Eastman (1983) framework. The review establishes the weaknesses of language planning theory and models. These weaknesses account for the inadequacy of language planning theory and models to provide approaches that can be used for multilingual policy and planning implementation. The chapter concludes by discussing how the inadequacies of language planning theory and models have contributed to the non- implementation of South Africaâs multilingual policy and plan. Chapter 5 develops an alternative approach to multilingual policy and planning implementation. The study names the approach âThe Language Management Approachâ. The approach specifies the theoretical basis for the new approach; the purpose; impediments; the variables; and the methodologies and strategies for multilingual policy and planning implementation. Chapter 6 presents a case study which was used to develop some aspects of the new approach as well as test the new approach. The case study demonstrates that the new approach facilitates multilingual policy and planning implementation. Chapter 7 outlines the conclusions and recommendations. The study contributes towards the resolution of the theoretic and practical dilemmas facing multilingual policy and planning implementation in South Africa and elsewhere.

After contextualising the challenges of deaf education in the twenty-first century in the global context, this study focused on sign language in the environment of bilingual-bicultural education for the deaf in South Africa. Each of the five essays pinpointed particular challenges and as a result the study ventures to use empirical research to demonstrate conclusively that the issue of sign language in a bilingual-bicultural education for the deaf in South Africa, as is the case elsewhere, is a complex matter in which a motley intersection of dynamics is to be taken into consideration. Fundamentally, the study indicates that sign languages in many polities in general, and in South Africa in particular, despite positive constitutional, legislative and policy developments, are subject to a particular challenges coined as âdouble linguistic imperialismâ: sign languages are not only marginalised by the former colonial languages that have been adopted as official languages in many states in the developing world; they are also marginalised by the dominant indigenous languages in these societies. Language policy in general and educational policy and concomitant systems in particular are some of the mechanisms that can be deployed to redress this state of affairs. In addressing the issue of sign languages acquisition and deaf education, the discussion establishes that the deaf child, in order to fully integrate into a predominantly hearing world, is faced with a particular challenge of adapting to an education system that provides for bilingual education. In such circumstances, sign language should ideally feature as first language, or mother tongue, as well as language of instruction. However, for purposes of reading and writing, the deaf child should also be exposed to a second, spoken language. This approach, the thesis argues, should lend emphasis on the so-called âcritical periodâ in the childâs development. This relatively obvious solution to the challenges that bedevil deaf education poses a particular challenge, given the ill-informed preconceptions of parents and society at large regarding the Deaf, Deaf culture and sign language, as well as its status as a natural language, and thus whether it is found âappropriateâ as alternative medium of instruction. The study thus also challenges one of the fundamental issues in educational linguistics, namely language attitudes with particular reference to parentsâ and teachersâ attitudes towards sign language as a medium of instruction for deaf learners. Empirical research conducted and published here for the first time reveals that parentsâ attitudes towards sign language as medium of instruction are as a rule at variance with particular situations, conditions and circumstances prevalent at any given time. However, the parents surveyed tend to agree that signed language should be used in instructing the Deaf child at school. They further agree that signed language holds the key to a deaf learner achieving higher levels of education. Overall, from an attitudinal perspective, parents of deaf learners would prefer signed languages to be the languages of instruction for their children. By contrast, educators seemed to find themselves unable to distinguish between the use of SASL and alternatives in the classroom, calling all methods of communication âSASLâ. The abundance of experience the teachers have plus the fact that they believe they have acquired SASL without any structured training is detrimental to the learners not only as it is detrimental to their communicative abilities in the classroom, but also as it devalues the need for formal training in SASL in the minds of the teachers, and this is transferred to their learners. The conclusion is that teachers are in dire need of formal training in order to appreciate the true complexity of signed language and by extension therefore realise the current limitations in the education of the learners. Despite current attitudes it was found that most of the teachers (60,5%) indicated a desire and intention to study further and such study should inter alia include the study of SASL. With regard to policy, the study establishes that Deaf education is a victim of the same fate that has been visited upon MTE in the developing world. There is an apparent non-recognition of the primacy of sign language as the mother tongue of the Deaf and therefore the failure to use sign language in education. This is a glaring failure which the principles, policies and legislation on Deaf education have certainly not remedied. Further, it can be posited that some of the failures in Deaf education are attributable to the same principles, policies and legislation that have guided Deaf education over time, Policies setting out the requirement that the Deaf are taught through the medium of signed language have certainly not been heeded nor implemented on the continent of Africa. The last paper in the study also establishes that sign languages, caught between negative societal perceptions, lethargic educational policies and an outdated pedagogy, suffer from a paucity of the development of instructional/learning materials. It is therefore important to recognise that there is need for materials development for sign languages so that they can become entrenched in the curriculum as taught subjects and in educational policy and practice as a media of instruction for Deaf learners. Admittedly, a lot of work remains to be done in the area of Deaf education. The issues addressed in the various papers in this study could serve as pointers to the critical issues that need redress if there is to be any hope of entrenching sign language in bilingual-bicultural education of the deaf, not only in South Africa, but elsewhere.