Multilingualism and Sign Languages: From the Great Plains to Australia

Editor’s Introduction

Editor’s Introduction The papers in this twelfth volume of the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series demonstrate very clearly how much the field has grown in the eleven years since the first volume in 1995. As can be seen in the title, the papers cover topics that range from the sign language used by American Indians in the Great Plains to variation and issues of interpretation in Auslan, with papers on Puerto Rican Sign Language, la Langue des Signes Québécoise (LSQ), Italian Codas and ASL discourse in between. The papers also represent all of the key areas of sociolinguistic study and continue the series tradition of data-based accounts of the use of sign languages in a wide variety of contexts all over the world. Sociolinguistic issues are clearly being noticed, analyzed and documented in many Deaf communities. It is a pleasure to welcome this volume to the series! Ceil Lucas Washington, D.C. ix ...