German Sign Language and
Communication of the Deaf
Photo: UHH/Denstorf
7 April 2020
Photo: Dr. Arne Krause, IfG, UHH
This year's host was the Center for Linguistics at the UHH under the direction of Prof. Heike Zinsmeister. The general theme was:
Linguistic diversity: theories, methods, resources
Sign language research was particularly represented in Workshop 2 "Linguistic diversity and linguistic modalities: New perspectives on bimodal (sign language/oral language) bilingualism". (Organising Committee: Barbara Hänel-Faulhaber, Carolina Plaza-Pust and Cornelia Loos)
The worldwide consequences of the incipient COVID-19 pandemic were already evident here in the low number of participants: Many people withdrew their participation at short notice, which meant that some programme items had to be cancelled.This also affected Prof. Carol Padden (University of California, San Diego), who wanted to give a keynote presentation on the topic "Multimodal Basis Of Human Language": DGfS had to cancel her participation at very short notice. With great luck we managed to find a phenomenal replacement in the short time available: Prof. Diane Lillo-Martin (University of Connecticut) was kind enough to step in and gave a plenary lecture on "Heritage Language Characteristics of Bimodal Bilinguals.
Sign language interpreters were on site during the conference and ensured barrier-free communication.
Further information on the website of the 42nd Annual Conference of the DGfS in Hamburg >>>