Signposting Professional Practice: Intercultural Communication and Interpretation

Everyone was there. LINCS staff from all sections, students, colleagues from universities all over the UK, Heads of Schools, Vice-Principals, technicians, photographers, interpreters, representatives from Deaf organisations, Deaf friends. A little girl with long blonde hair was laughing and signing happily with her grandparents, who were all dressed to the nines for the occasion. It […]


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Final-year BSL students at the Scottish Parliament

Reflections from a teacher by Stacey Webb, Assistant Professor in Sign Language Studies It is not every day you get to bring your classroom to the real world.  So often we try to bring the real world to the classroom and it just never replicates real life!  Recently we listened and practised interpreting a graduation […]


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Progression 2015:  A two-day celebration of Deaf Arts

by Michael Richardson Only ten days into my Ph.D. research programme, exploring the engagement of the Deaf community and the use of British Sign Language (BSL) in theatre, I was fortunate to be able to attend a two day conference in Glasgow celebrating Deaf Arts and the progress made in that arena over the last decade. […]


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17th September 2015: A momentous day for the BSL Community

by Graham Turner On a most extraordinary afternoon last week (17th September 2015, a date to be remembered), it seemed that half of Heriot-Watt’s Department of Languages & Intercultural Studies re-located to the Scottish Parliament for a few hours. Why? It was the Stage 3 (final) reading in the chamber of the British Sign Language […]


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Passing as deaf or hearing: choosing cross-cultural identities

by Noel O’Connell On 15th June 2015, media reports raised questions about Rachel Dolezal’s background. A scholar of race and African-American culture and daughter of white parents, Dolezal had identified as Black. Stories of black people “passing” as white or white people as black have been a fascination for researchers and historians for many years. Racial […]


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The use of technology as a cost-cutting exercise

by Rita McDade (English version) You know how technology changes over time, and the Sign Language Community has seen changes through the use of faxes, text messaging and online video telephony? These are all changes that have had an impact on the Signing community, and it seems that, more recently, there is a growth in […]


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On Deafhood Space

by Steve Emery   [English version] Last week, I went to Paddy Ladd’s lecture. He was talking about “Deafhood – A Pedagogy”, which was about theories of teaching Deaf children. It was really interesting, but there was one part of his lecture that really got me thinking,  when he was talking about  “Wounded Space”, which […]


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Can Scotland play a leading role in redefining Heritage?

The Intercultural Research Centre in LINCS is leading the next event in the Thought Leadership Series, which will take place on Wednesday 27th May 2015 at 6.00pm at the Postgraduate Centre, Heriot-Watt University, with the title “Can Scotland play a leading role in redefining Heritage?” Before the referendum the SNP promised that in the event of a […]


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Call for papers! Special issue on Signed Language Interpreting and Translation

Translation and Interpreting Studies Special Issue Signed Language Interpreting and Translation CALL FOR PAPERS Guest Editors Laurie Swabey, St. Catherine University Brenda Nicodemus, Gallaudet University Translation and Interpreting Studies (John Benjamins) invites proposals for a special thematic issue on signed language interpretation and translation to be published in April of 2018.  The editors aim to […]


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