Deaf Community INSPIREd by Sweden
Mats Jonsson of Stockholm University
Students in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science and about two-dozen members of the Urbana-Champaign deaf community ventured into bilingualism when they studied Swedish Sign Language with Mr. Mats Jonsson of the Stockholm University Department of Linguistics. He came to the University of Illinois as part of the INSPIRE program, the Illinois-Sweden Program for Educational and Research Exchange. While Mr. Jonsson taught Swedish Sign Language here, Donald Haring, instructor of American Sign Language in SHS, joined the Stockholm University faculty to teach an introductory course in American Sign Language.
The exchange resulted from a research collaboration between SHS professor Matt Dye and Professors Johanna Mesch and Krister Schönström at Stockholm University in which they are investigating the effects of early exposure to sign language on spoken language development. “I thought it would be interesting for our students and local deaf community to learn how another culture sees deafness,” Dr. Dye said. “I believed it would also give all of us greater insight into how sign languages work.”
There are more than 300 sign languages around the world, each with its own phonology, morphology, and syntax, although languages may borrow from each other. “The experience of teaching a language to someone who has no exposure to that language’s culture or language community—particularly languages that have no written form and are difficult to learn from books—leads to exciting new perspectives on how to teach,” Dr. Dye said. “I think this experience will benefit both SHS students and the local deaf community as we develop new curricula to expand our efforts.”