Samuel James Supalla

Last updated
Samuel James Supalla
Born (1957-12-04) December 4, 1957 (age 65)
Pasco, Washington

Samuel James Supalla (December 4, 1957) is an American Sign Language performer, filmmaker, and linguist.

Contents

Supalla was born in Pasco, Washington in December 1957. On his birth, he has said: "Although, I really think of myself as being born around December 23rd with the help of my brother, Ted!" [1] Ted had helped with the creation of his name sign, which Samuel did not have until three weeks after his birth. [2] At a very young age, he began appointing name signs for others. Both of his parents were deaf and he had three brothers, two deaf and one hard of hearing. Supalla is notable for his storytelling performances in American Sign Language (ASL), particularly for his narrative in The American Literature Series: For a Decent Living. He is a filmmaker and a linguist “whose interest lies in the research and English development issues concerning deaf children” [3] and stresses the importance of a natural sign language.

Early life

Before enrolling in school, Samuel's father would often go to the Deaf Club bringing the whole family along to attend. Samuel himself remembers the old stories and plays that were performed in ASL. The audience at the Club shared a fascination for these ASL stories. He graduated from the Oregon School for the Deaf. Throughout preschool and elementary, the program enforced oralism amongst deaf students where signing was not allowed. Although the children were not allowed to sign, they would do so in their dormitories. “I had become a signing model for my peers during the early formative years. [4] When Supalla went home, he made up stories about an imaginary white horse, and when he returned to school, he told his classmates. When the students visited his home, “they would ask where the white horse was. I would have to lie and tell them that the white horse died. They were disappointed that they never got to see the white horse”. [5]

Talent competition

When Supalla was 15, the Oregon School for the Deaf was invited by Gallaudet University to go to National Association of the Deaf. There was a talent competition in front of an audience of Gallaudet students. Supalla won the competition. [6]

College years

At the end of high school, Supalla enrolled at California State University Northridge in 1976 and graduated as a History major. During his college years, he was invited to a conference on American Sign Language research, as a part of the entertainment for the conference. It was this engagement that established the start of his professional career. During this period of his life, he travelled for the purpose of doing live shows/storytelling in front of many audiences. He worked as a research assistant at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His next move was to apply to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1982, where he was admitted and majored in education with a concentration in bilingual education. It was at the University of Illinois that he received his master's degree and Doctorate degrees.

Career

After graduating from the University of Illinois, Supalla was offered a job at the University of Arizona. He took the job and moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 1989. His prime focus at the university is on disability and psychoeducational studies.

“His original work on how artificial English-based sign systems fail has led to a greater appreciation of American Sign Language (ASL) as a working language in terms of visual perception and processing.” [7]

Supalla is concerned with literacy issues regarding learning to read and write in English. “In the case of deaf children, the need to develop a 'mother tongue' (e.g., ASL) is stressed in order to facilitate the learning of a second language (e.g., English) within the context of bilingualism.” [8]

Supalla's The Book Of Names Signs was published 1992. [9] It describes the origins of American Sign Language name signing.

ASL-phabet is a system designed by Supalla. It is the American Sign Language dictionary for kids which consists of over 300 sign words that include symbols such as Handshape, Location, and Movement. It is a “primary source of English for deaf learners“. [10]

Supalla contributed to A Free Hand: Enfranchising the Education of Deaf Children. His part discusses “the policy analysis on the notion of reverse mainstreaming and the redefinition of bilingual education for deaf children that is forthcoming.” [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Sign Language</span> Sign language used predominately in the United States

American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca. ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutinative morphology.

The history of deaf people and deaf culture make up deaf history. The Deaf culture is a culture that is centered on sign language and relationships among one another. Unlike other cultures the Deaf culture is not associated with any native land as it is a global culture. By some, deafness may be viewed as a disability, but the Deaf world sees itself as a language minority. Throughout the years many accomplishments have been achieved by deaf people. To name the most famous, Ludwig van Beethoven and Thomas Alva Edison were both deaf and contributed great works to culture.

Audism as described by deaf activists is a form of discrimination directed against deaf people, which may include those diagnosed as deaf from birth, or otherwise. Tom L. Humphries coined the term in his doctoral dissertation in 1975, but it did not start to catch on until Harlan Lane used it in his writing. Humphries originally applied audism to individual attitudes and practices; whereas Lane broadened the term to include oppression of deaf people.

A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between deaf individuals using a sign language and hearing individuals using an oral language. Contact languages also arise between different sign languages, although the term pidgin rather than contact sign is used to describe such phenomena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sign name</span> Sign used to identify a person

In deaf culture and sign language, a sign name is a special sign that is used to uniquely identify a person.

Clayton Valli was an American prominent deaf linguist and American Sign Language (ASL) poet whose work helped further to legitimize ASL and introduce people to the richness of American Sign Language literature.

Bimodal bilingualism is an individual or community's bilingual competency in at least one oral language and at least one sign language, which utilize two different modalities. An oral language consists of an vocal-aural modality versus a signed language which consists of a visual-spatial modality. A substantial number of bimodal bilinguals are children of deaf adults (CODA) or other hearing people who learn sign language for various reasons. Deaf people as a group have their own sign language(s) and culture that is referred to as Deaf, but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its own oral language. Thus, "most deaf people are bilingual to some extent in [an oral] language in some form" In discussions of multilingualism in the United States, bimodal bilingualism and bimodal bilinguals have often not been mentioned or even considered, in part because American Sign Language, the predominant sign language used in the U.S., only began to be acknowledged as a natural language in the 1960s. However, bimodal bilinguals share many of the same traits as traditional bilinguals, as well as differing in some interesting ways, due to the unique characteristics of the Deaf community. Bimodal bilinguals also experience similar neurological benefits as do unimodal bilinguals, with significantly increased grey matter in various brain areas and evidence of increased plasticity as well as neuroprotective advantages that can help slow or even prevent the onset of age-related cognitive diseases, such as Alzheimer's and dementia.

Bilingual–Bicultural or Bi-Bi deaf education programs use sign language as the native, or first, language of Deaf children. In the United States, for example, Bi-Bi proponents claim that American Sign Language (ASL) should be the natural first language for deaf children in the United States, although the majority of deaf and hard of hearing being born to hearing parents. In this same vein, the spoken or written language used by the majority of the population is viewed as a secondary language to be acquired either after or at the same time as the native language.

Singapore Sign Language, or SgSL, is the native sign language used by the deaf and hard of hearing in Singapore, developed over six decades since the setting up of the first school for the Deaf in 1954. Since Singapore's independence in 1965, the Singapore deaf community has had to adapt to many linguistic changes. Today, the local deaf community recognises Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) as a reflection of Singapore's diverse linguistic culture. SgSL is influenced by Shanghainese Sign Language (SSL), American Sign Language (ASL), Signing Exact English (SEE-II) and locally developed signs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deaf education</span> Education of the hearing-impaired

Deaf education is the education of students with any degree of hearing loss or deafness. This may involve, but does not always, individually-planned, systematically-monitored teaching methods, adaptive materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help students achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than they would achieve with a typical classroom education. There are different language modalities used in educational setting where students get varied communication methods. A number of countries focus on training teachers to teach deaf students with a variety of approaches and have organizations to aid deaf students.

ASL-phabet, or the ASL Alphabet, is a writing system developed by Samuel Supalla for American Sign Language (ASL). It is based on a system called SignFont, which Supalla modified and streamlined for use in an educational setting with Deaf children.

The deaf community over time has worked to improve the educational system for those who are deaf and hard of hearing. The history of deaf education dates back to Ancient Egypt where the deaf were respected and revered. In contrast, those who were deaf in Ancient Greece were considered a burden to society and put to death. The educational aspects of the deaf community has evolved tremendously and still continues to grow as the science of linguistics, educational research, new technologies, and laws, on local, national, and international levels are steadily being introduced. Strategies, however, remain controversial.

Robert J. Hoffmeister is associate professor emeritus and former director of the Center for the Study of Communication & Deafness at Boston University. He is most known for his book, Journey into the Deaf World. He is also known for supporting the American deaf community and deaf education.

Benjamin James Bahan is a professor of ASL and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University and a member of the deaf community. He is an influential figure in American Sign Language literature as a storyteller and writer of deaf culture. He is known for the stories "The Ball Story" and "Birds of a Different Feather". He is known for writing the book A Journey into the Deaf-World (1996) with Robert J. Hoffmeister and Harlan Lane. Bahan also co-wrote and co-directed the film Audism Unveiled (2008) with his colleague Dirksen Bauman.

The history of deaf education in the United States began in the early 1800s when the Cobbs School of Virginia, an oral school, was established by William Bolling and John Braidwood, and the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, a manual school, was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. When the Cobbs School closed in 1816, the manual method, which used American Sign Language, became commonplace in deaf schools for most of the remainder of the century. In the late 1800s, schools began to use the oral method, which only allowed the use of speech, as opposed to the manual method previously in place. Students caught using sign language in oral programs were often punished. The oral method was used for many years until sign language instruction gradually began to come back into deaf education.

Lou Fant was a pioneering teacher, author and expert on American Sign Language (ASL). He was also an actor in film, television, and the stage. Natively bilingual in ASL and English, he often played roles relating to sign language and the deaf.

Ted Supalla is a deaf linguist whose research centers on sign language in its developmental and global context, including studies of the grammatical structure and evolution of American Sign Language and other sign languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black American Sign Language</span> Dialect of American Sign Language

Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf African Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the American South. Like other schools at the time, schools for the deaf were segregated based upon race, creating two language communities among deaf signers: black deaf signers at black schools and white deaf signers at white schools. As of the mid 2010s, BASL is still used by signers in the South despite public schools having been legally desegregated since 1954.

Navajo Family Sign is a sign language used by a small deaf community of the Navajo People.

The establishment of schools and institutions specializing in deaf education has a history spanning back across multiple centuries. They utilized a variety of instructional approaches and philosophies. The manner in which the language barrier is handled between the hearing and the deaf remains a topic of great controversy. Many of the early establishments of formalized education for the deaf are currently acknowledged for the influence they've contributed to the development and standards of deaf education today.

References

  1. ↑ Supalla, Samuel J. (1992). The book of name signs. Berkeley, Calif.: Dawn Sign Press. pp.  4. ISBN   0-915035-30-8.
  2. ↑ Supalla, Samuel J. (1992). The Book of Name Signs. Berkeley, Calif.: Dawn Sign Press. pp.  4. ISBN   0-915035-30-8.
  3. ↑ "Samuel Supalla, Ph.D." The University of Arizona College of Education. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
  4. ↑ Supalla, Samuel James. "Personal Interview with Sam Supalla".{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  5. ↑ ASL Literature Series: Bird of a Different Feather; For a Decent Living. San Diego, CA: Dawn Pictures. 1992. ISBN   0-915035-21-9.
  6. ↑ ASL Literature Series: Bird of a Different Feather ; For a Decent Living. San Diego, CA: Dawn Pictures. 1992. ISBN   0-915035-21-9.
  7. ↑ "Samuel Supalla, Ph.D." The University of Arizona College of Education. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
  8. ↑ [Hrsg.], Margaret Walworth; Donald F. Moores; Terrence J. O'Rourke (1992). A Free Hand : Enfranchising the Education of Deaf Children. Silver Spring, Md.: T.J. Publishers. p. 172. ISBN   978-0-932666-40-6.
  9. ↑ Publications recognized
  10. ↑ Supalla, Samuel James. "ASLphabet". The Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf 2009. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
  11. ↑ [Hrsg.], Margaret Walworth; Donald F. Moores; Terrence J. O'Rourke (1992). A free hand : Enfranchising the education of deaf children. Silver Spring, Md.: T.J. Publishers. p. 170. ISBN   978-0-932666-40-6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.