Sign Language Studies

Abstract:

In this article, I discuss the benefits of linguistic ethnography for the study of the communication of deaf individuals who grow up without access to the linguistic resources of a named spoken or signed language in Iquitos, Peru. Linguistic ethnography is an umbrella term for a growing methodological and theoretical approach shared by researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. While an array of methodological approaches are used within linguistic ethnography, the methods that I utilize include ethnographic fieldwork and the microanalysis of videorecorded naturally occurring interactions. I use this methodological approach to present the social organization of the lives of deaf youth in Iquitos, as well as an example of the language use of one deaf boy taken from a segment of situated interaction during a bingo game.