During the last four decades a large amount of research has been conducted into conversational repair (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977), and especially other-initiation of repair (OIR). A vast part of the research has been on spoken English, without considering or having access to embodied practices. This explorative article provides a brief overview of the repair-initiation formats employed in Norwegian Sign Language. The data has been extracted from a corpus of informal multi-person conversations among deaf adult co-workers, recorded at their workplaces. The results show a high degree of overlap with the formats found in spoken languages, and those found by Manrique (2016), Manrique and Enfield (2015) and Manrique et al. (2017) in Argentine Sign Language. The article also highlights ambiguities related to some of the formats, both for the analyst and for the interlocutors. Examples are presented both as summaries, transcriptions, uncensored video-clips and as series of stills.
Not all other-initiations of repair (OIR) are instantly followed by a functional self-repair that restores the progress of the conversation. Despite previous observations of OIRs generally leading to restored progress after one single-repair initiation, data from a multiperson conversational corpus of Norwegian Sign Language (NTS) show that 68% of 112 individual repair initiations occur in multiple OIR sequences. This article identifies three different trajectories of multiple OIR sequences in the NTS data, which are as follows: (1) a trouble source being targeted by more than one repair initiation, (2) the self-repair becomes a new trouble source, or (3) the repair initiation becomes a new trouble source. The high frequency of multiple OIR sequences provides an opportunity to quantitatively investigate how the various formats of repair initiation are distributed in single- and multiple-OIR sequences, how they occur as first or subsequent, and whether they restore the progress of the conversation or are followed by another repair initiation.
This article explores comic-strip-inspired graphic transcripts as a tool to present conversational video data from informal multiperson conversations in a signed language, specifically Norwegian Sign Language (NTS). The interlocutors' utterances are represented as English translations in speech bubbles rather than glossed or phonetically transcribed NTS, and the article discusses advantages and disadvantages of this unconventional choice. To contextualize this exploration of graphic transcripts, a small-scale analysis of a stretch of interaction is embedded in the article. The extract shows conversational trouble and repair occurring when interlocutors respond to utterances produced while they as recipients were looking elsewhere. The NTS extract is introduced with a short sample of multilinear, Jefferson-inspired glossed transcript and then presented in full as graphic transcript. The article concludes that for presenting nonsensitive data, graphic transcripts have several advantages, such as improved access to visual features, flexible granularity, and enhanced readability. Data are in Norwegian Sign Language with English translations.
The traditions, the development, and the objectives of deaf education in Norway and Russia are different. One of the main differences is whether deaf education is in itself seen as intercultural communication, meaning to what degrees the sign language communities are treated as linguistic and cultural minorities or simply as disabled. Neither the Russian nor the Norwegian practice is internationally unique, but the two become recognizable in light of each other, and internationally, they represent two common ways of dealing with education for the deaf today. This article will discuss what are some of the differences and similarities in deaf education between Norway and Russia related to the status of the two countries' signed languages and whether the deaf populations are viewed either as disabled or as a linguistic minority. The discussion is based on some historical occurrences leading to the current situations in the two countries. Two different discourses, a disability discourse and a minority discourse, will be presented. The disability discourse generally seems to be the most intuitive one among adult newcomers to this field, while the minority discourse more often needs a fair bit of elaboration. Therefore, more space will be devoted to the minority discourse in this article. Furthermore, the description of the differences and similarities in deaf education will draw on the writings of the Russian scholar Lev Vygotsky on (Russian) deaf education and look at what Joseph Stalin wrote about deaf people and language. I shall argue that Vygotsky's suggestions seem to have had more impact in Norway than in Russia, while Stalin's writings seemingly had a great impact on the view on Russian Sign Language (RSL 1) and the practice and objectives of the Russian schools for the deaf. I will argue that a hundred years of experience of attempting to make the spoken majority language the first language of deaf children should lead to a change in direction.
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