The document discusses a study examining how the sign language identity of deaf people is strengthened or weakened in different environments. A questionnaire was administered to 65 deaf individuals about their experiences of equality in various communication settings such as work, social media, sports, and public transportation. The results showed that deaf people felt less equal in environments relying heavily on spoken and written language compared to those using sign language. Sign language identity was found to be strengthened in visual and interaction-based settings that facilitated the use of sign language.

1. Which equal environment and
identity strengthens and weakens
the sign language for deaf
people?
Joni Oyserman
Silja Ruonala
Nina Sivunen
28.11.2011
Jyväskylän yliopisto

2. Contents
 Background
 Data collection
 Results
 Consideration
 References

3. “Deaf people are nation without a
country”
Bernard Mottez

4. Topic's selecting and background
 Interesting- how the deaf uses sign
language in different environment
 Which kind of equivalent do they experience
 Do they feel equal in a multimodal
interaction environment

5. Data Collection
 Thesistools
Questionnaire
15 questions
Answered 65
 Questionnaires had focused to get a
response for how deaf, hard-of-hearing, CI-
user feel equal in different environment

7. Male
Table 1
16 
60
49  Female
18  Deaf school
0  HH school/class 50
20  Hearing school
22  Institution school40
8  Netherlands
Finland
57 
30
Deaf
32 
CODA
2 
20
 HH
6
 CI-user
1
 Hearing
24 10
 Work
24
 Student
22 0

8. Table 2

9. Result
Majority of deaf had answered
 No feel equal in work place
Caused unfair with identity in communication
or asseignments
 “Yes” for Facebook equal
No barries on communication
Visual discourse (Norris)
 Less “Yes” for msn, chat, twitter equal
No enough skills to communicate written
language

10. Result
 “Yes” for less equal in Youtube
Directed by audio (2,2 millions hits)
 “Yes” for equal feel in street, resturant and
shops – but no equal feel in public transport
(bus, train and airplane)
Information by audio
 Deaf with hearing sport is clearly low equal than
with deaf
environment

11. Consideration
 Sign language identity become weak depends
spoken and written environment
 Deaf people are depending on multimodal
environment and by interaction
 An environment with signed language and
visual space it strengthens the sign language
identity
 Deaf feel equal with an identity balance except
in bus, train and airplane and sport with hearing

12. Reference
Broesterhuizen, M. 2003. Doofheid: beperking of kracht? Tijdschrift voor Theologie, 43, no.
1: 52-77.
Norris, S. 2011. Identity in (inter)action : introducing multimodal (inter)action analysis. Gruyter
Mouton.
Salo, S. 2005. Tapaustutkimus kuuron omasta identiteetistä sekä voimaantumisesta. Jyväskylän
yliopisto. Opettajankoulutuslaitos. Kasvatustieteen pro gradu –tutkielma.
Skelton,T. & Valentine, G. 2003. It feels like being Deaf is normal: an exploration into the
complexities of defining D/deafness and young D/deaf people’s identities. Loughborough
University: Sheffield University.
Wallvik,B. Yhdistystoiminnan synty. In Malm, A. & Östman, J-O. 2000. Viittomakieliset ja
heidän kielensä. Teoksessa Viittomakieliset Suomessa. Finnlectura: Pieksämäki.