I am SMALL-d DEAF, ISTD submission 2018
In response to the brief: Mark my Words
In response to the brief: Mark my Words
This publication presents a timeline of how Irish Sign Language evolved historically, alongside English, in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland, from the perspective of the signing person.
The title of this publication, I AM SMALL-d DEAF, is inspired by a line from Daniel Tammet's Every Word is a Bird we Teach to Sing. One of the characters verbalises the fact that he does not consider himself culturally deaf as he became deaf after learning to speak thus sign language was a second language to him.
The publication is based on two narratives. The first narrative belongs to the scholars, linguists, policy makers, those who create language and education policy. The second narrative belongs to the deaf or hard of hearing individual who has had to live through all the changes in education policy, expectations and perceptions. For this narrative I've used multiple sources: Helen Keller's The Story of My Life, Every Word is a Bird we Teach to Sing by Daniel Tammet, Tonal Sensation in Silence by Ragnhildur Gisladottir and two news articles.
The story of a community that lives in silence had to unfold in silence, that is why I've chosen a somewhat unassuming font, a lot of transparency, I've used a lot of white space and tried to emphasize the lack of noise, where appropriate, by using entire blank pages.
The choice of paper reflects the silence aspect of my concept as does the lack of bold colours and graphics. Spoken and signed languages are immaterial, that is why I have used a lot of transparent paper for the second narrative.
One of the main objectives was to create a consistent visual language to support and enhance the content. Two figurative spaces were created for the purpose of showcasing speech: a signing space - employed while using the Manual and Non Manual Features of Irish Sign Language and the space occupied by spoken language, in this case English.
The book is meant to provide a visual and tactile experience thus enticing the reader to find out more on this subject. It makes him/her understand the ways in which signed languages differ from spoken ones, how deaf people learn sign language and English and how different the educational process is for them compared to hearing individuals.
This section is meant to teach the viewer the grueling task of fingerspelling - having to use your fingers to sign all letters, one by one. It takes a great amount of concentration and patience to follow all the movements performed by the person signing.
This portrays how deaf individuals perceive music since vibrations are processed by the same area of the brain as sound waves.
The following lines are printed on different pages. The girls and boys who attended the Cabra schools were in a way each on a different island, this lead to them eventually having two different vocabularies.
The sisters teaching the girls catered to the elite and the monks teaching the boys to the masses. I illustrated this with my choice of quotes and their placement on the page.
This section portrays the process of acquiring language by repetition and/or vocalization at different sound levels by using different levels of transparency.
When I started working on this publication Irish Sign Language had no official standing in the Republic of Ireland. On December 14, 2017 however The Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill 2016 has passed all stages in the Dáil designating Irish Sign Language as a native and independent language.
