English in International Deaf Communication

Signed languages are forms of human communication based on visual/gestural perception as opposed to aural/oral. Those profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, who learn to sign from an early age, live in a bilingual/bicultural environment composed of deaf and hearing realities and hence learn both the signed and non-signed varieties of languages existing in their societies. Outside English-speaking countries, in an increasingly globalized world, deaf people come into contact with the English language in specific domains; indirectly through interpretation and translation or directly by learning it as a foreign language. The reception/production of verbal, visual, multimodal texts in English facilitates international communication and integration among the deaf and between deaf and hearing people. The volume aims to explore a range of intercultural/interlinguistic encounters with English, in a variety of international signed and non-signed combinations.