Literature Review on Engineer
Sign language.
Sign language is a visual language that uses facial expressions, body movements, and hands as the medium of communication (Camgoz et al., 2018). Even though sign language is often used to communicate with the deaf, it also offers much to people partaking in the course. People engaged in learning sign language have some essential benefits they encounter in the field. First, sign language is necessary for deaf people. Sign language is the native language for the deaf community, and this is the primary reason it is of the essence for someone to study it. However, it is worth noting that it not only focuses on the deaf but also on those who can hear but have a speaking challenge. Consequently, those who partake in sign language find it more expressive. This is because it is mostly performed by the application of facial expressions and body movements. Facial expressions can be explicit, both grammatical and emotional (Mitchell et al., 2017). The people involved in this discipline can vary their attitude to best suit the intended message. For example, lowering and raising the eyebrows can be employed to indicates variation in sentence structure. Moreover, individuals studying sign language can privately converse in public places.
Importance of studying sign language.
The article by Mitchell et al. (2017) in furtherance revolves around the essence of studying sign language. They highlight that it is helpful to people with autism spectrum disorder since some children with these disorders develop difficulty in literal communication. Besides, children have exploited high-quality communication when using sign language compared to verbal communication. Moreover, the article demonstrates that children can easily acquire sign language the same way they learn spoken language. In further elaboration of the point, the authors claim that it is due to the children’s cognitivism that allows them to grasp quickly. Consequently, they argue that sign language learning facilitates listening with the eye. This is because the people involved will ensure continuous eye contact with the speaker since interrupting eye contact lead to misunderstanding of content (Fajri & Kusumastuti, 2019).
Challenges associated with sign language.
Horton et al. (2020) highlight the challenges that the people involved in this discipline encounter. First, they experience technical presentations without prep materials. They state that interpreters should have the accessibility of materials before presentation for familiarity. Inconvenience results in mental and physical stress. Another challenge that the author states are a lack of knowledge on handling interpreters (Reed, 2019). This comes from the audience’s ignorance of throwing comments directly or indirectly insulting the interpreters. This occurs due to not knowing the role of an interpreter in such talks. Additionally, those people who embarrass sign language have a problem with dark accents. This results in the inaccuracy of the expected context of the information. (Marshall & Morgan, 2020) also highlights language variation as another challenge revolves around this field.
Overcoming the sign language challenges.
The article by Snoddon (2018.) highlights the ways of overcoming the challenges. First, it’s essential to adapt to a new environment. This will ensure that quality services are delivered to the audiences since, despite the varying setup, deaf people deserve proper interpretation. Omar & Jaward. (2019) further states that it is advisable to seek advice from others. This will mitigate unnecessary limiting of oneself by misjudgments or isolations. Additionally, one needs to recognize one’s limitations.
Conclusion.
Conclusively, a research gap that has been analyzed on sign language discipline is that English is a complex language; thus, learning it is difficult. Therefore, the provision of manual form to the students would aid in narrowing the gap. Consequently, sign language does not vividly link the two languages. Better connection between the teachers and students lead to productive outcome hence narrowing the gap. Research by King & Flynn (n.d.) has declared sign language a useful tool in bridging the gap between English and ELL learners.
Reference
Cihan Camgoz, N., Hadfield, S., Koller, O., Ney, H., & Bowden, R. (2018). Neural sign language translation. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (pp. 7784-7793).
Geers, A. E., Mitchell, C. M., Warner-Czyz, A., Wang, N. Y., Eisenberg, L. S., & CDaCI Investigative Team. (, 2017). Early sign language exposure and cochlear implantation benefits. Pediatrics, 140(1).
Fajri, B. B. R., Fajri, B. R., & Kusumastuti, G. (2019, December). Perceptions of ‘Hearing’ People on Sign Language Learning. In the 5th International Conference on Education and Technology (ICET 2019). Atlantis Press.
Rissman, L., Horton, L., Flaherty, M., Senghas, A., Coppola, M., Brentari, D., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2020). The communicative importance of agent-backgrounding: Evidence from home sign and Nicaraguan Sign Language. Cognition, 203, 104332.
Reed, L. W. (2019). Sign Languages of Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea, and their Challenges for Sign Language Typology.
Gulamani, S., Marshall, C., & Morgan, G. (2020). The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language: Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language. Second Language Research, 0267658320906855.
Snoddon, K. (2018). Whose ASL counts? Linguistic prescriptivism and challenges in the context of parent sign language curriculum development. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(8), 1004-1015.
Cheok, M. J., Omar, Z., & Jaward, M. H. (2019). A review of hand gesture and sign language recognition techniques. International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics, 10(1), 131-153.
King, A., & Flynn, R. (n.d.). UsingEnglish.com. Retrieved from ESL Resources: http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers.php