An M.V. Signs Then and Now collaboration with Oak Bluffs Library’s Signed Language Practice Circle brings special guests for a unique opportunity to a sign language talk and Q and A with sign language interpreters on Wednesday, Nov. 8, from 5 to 6:30 pm at the library.
Guests include Dr. Jody Cripps, a deaf ASL professor from Clemson University; and Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody, a deaf Cherokee, Shawnee, Powhatan, and Montauk, who is a North American Indian sign language specialist from the University of Arizona. Interpreters include Doreen Simmons, a retired deaf ALS researcher from the University of Connecticut, Dr. Alton Brant, a retired educator and CODA from Seneca, S.C., and Connie Steuerwalk, a deaf resident and sign language practice circle teacher at the Oak Bluffs library. The event is in collaboration with the M.V. Signs Then and Now Project.
McKay-Cody earned her doctoral degree in linguistic and sociocultural anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. According to a press release from M.V. Signs Then and Now, she has studied critically endangered indigenous sign languages in North America since 1994, and helps different tribes preserve their tribal signs. She also specialized in indigenous deaf studies and interpreter training incorporating native culture, North American Indian Sign Language, and ASL. McKay-Cody is also an educator and advocate for indigenous interpreters and students in educational settings. She has taught ASL classes in several universities for more than 40 years, and is one of eight founders of Turtle Island Hand Talk, a new group focused on indigenous deaf, hard of hearing, blind and deaf, and hearing people.
Cripps is a deaf ASL professor at Clemson University, and an assistant professor of American Sign Language in the department of languages at Clemson University. Cripps obtained his doctorate in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program from the University of Arizona. His research interests primarily focus on universal design, signed music, signed language pathology, ASL–English literacy, and pedagogical methods. Cripps’ latest grant allows for conducting ethnomusicological research in Canada on the creative process, and production of a sign music showcase titled “The Black Drum,” performed by a signing musical theater troupe. In addition to his teaching and research, Cripps also serves as the editor-in-chief for the Society for American Sign Language Journal and the vice president of the Gloss Institute, a nonprofit organization providing educators and parents tools and resources to overcome the habitually low English literacy rates in deaf children.
Steuerwald, a deaf Island resident and Signed Language Practice Circle teacher at the Oak Bluffs library, is also a guest at the event. The practice circles meet on Wednesday evenings from 5 to 6 pm at the Oak Bluffs library. The only requirement is to know the manual alphabet. (The library has copies and links for learning and practicing the manual alphabet.) Simmons and Brant will serve as interpreters at the event.
M.V. Signs Then and Now aims to raise awareness of Martha’s Vineyard sign language community, which existed from the 1600s to the mid-1900s. It encourages hearing residents to learn the manual alphabet and some basic ASL signs to initiate a sign language revival that meets the needs of the deaf, hard of hearing, those with voice problems, and those with challenging communication needs across the Island, and for tourists with those same needs who travel to the Island.
Deaf with a capital D