How Culture and Technology Together Shape New Computer Tools: Investigating Interactions between Deaf Callers in Computer-Mediated Videotelephonic Communication
Research Collaborator: Gene Mirus
Research Assistant: Chris Moreland
Funded by Dell Computer Corporation and the University of Texas at Austin (previous research on Deaf and hearing interactions via computer mediated communication funded by IBM, Southwestern Bell, and the University of Texas)
The goal of this project is to learn about the impacts of new computer technologies on human communication patterns, particularly communication among Deaf users of videotelephonic communication. This study will contribute to what is known about how technologies transform cultural practices, for example how people change their language practices to accommodate to new computer technology, as well as how they shape the new technology to fit existing practices. This project focuses on computer-mediated video telephone communication. With this technology virtually all Deaf individuals can have access to telephone communication using their native language, American Sign Language, via the internet, and most of them will be first time users of computer-mediated communication.
Professionals in communication technologies are interested in the specific ways people interact with technological tools, and deal with technological challenges, as well as how new technology is integrated into existing social practices. Integrating anthropological analysis of how participants actually use technology will provide those designing new technology with important information which could influence its effectiveness. Computer-mediated videotelephone interactions will become an important tool in the education and learning strategies of particular disadvantaged groups. For example, this new technology can significantly improve the educational experience of Deaf students, who are often isolated in classrooms with hearing students. It can permit them to participate in peer learning interactions with other Deaf students at other sites via video conference, forming a virtual Deaf community of students.
The vast majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents and enter the Deaf community at different ages and with different backgrounds, including variation in signing and English ability. Until now members of the Deaf community have been dependent on written English communication to communicate by telephone (the TTY, a teletypewriter), and those with limited written skills have been excluded from telephone communication. The growing availability of video telephones and access to the internet has the potential of revolutionizing Deaf communication by telephone.
Publications Resulting from the Project
| Forthcoming | New Technologies and Minority Language Communities: The Deaf Community, Visual Virtual Language and Computer-Mediated Communication. Thomas Stolz and Joel Sherzer, eds. MINOR LANGUAGES Approaches, Definitions, Controversies. (co- authored with Gene Mirus). |
| 2003 | American Sign Language in Virtual Space: Interactions between Deaf Users of Computer-Mediated Video Communication and the Impact of Technology on Language Practices. Language in Society 32, 693-714 (co-authored with Gene Mirus). |
| 2000 | How Culture and Technology Together Shape New Communicative Practices: Investigating Interactions Between Deaf and Hearing Callers with Computer-mediated Videotelephone, Texas Linguistic Forum 43, 2000:99-116. Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Symposium About Language and Society-Austin. |
Papers Presented
| 2001 | New Technologies and Minority Language Communities: The Deaf Community, Visual Virtual Language and Computer-Mediated Communication, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany. |
| 2001 | American Sign Language In Virtual Space: Interactions Between Deaf Users Of Video Telephone And Some Impacts Of Technology On Language Practices, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands |
| 2000 | American Sign Language in Virtual Space: Interactions Between Deaf Users of Video Telephone and the Impact of Technology on Language Practices. American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, San Francisco (with Gene Mirus) |
| 2000 | Looking at Deaf-Hearing Interactions and the Impact of Technology on Language Practices, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany. |
| 2000 | Colloquium Linguisticum, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany |
| 1999 | How Culture and Technology Together Shape New Communicative Practices: Investigating Interactions Between Deaf and Hearing Callers with Computer-mediated Videotelephone, Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands |