British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom and is the first or preferred language among the deaf community in the UK. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' on the 2011 Scottish Census, the British Deaf Association estimates there are 151,000 BSL users in the UK, of whom 87,000 are Deaf. By contrast, in the 2011 England and Wales Census 15,000 people living in England and Wales reported themselves using BSL as their main language. People who are not deaf may also use BSL, as hearing relatives of deaf people, sign language interpreters or as a result of other contact with the British Deaf community. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands, body, face and head.
New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006 under the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. The purpose of the act was to create rights and obligations in the use of NZSL throughout the legal system and to ensure that the Deaf community had the same access to government information and services as everybody else. According to the 2013 Census, over 20,000 New Zealanders know NZSL.
Dorothy "Dot" Miles was a Welsh poet and activist in the deaf community. Throughout her life, she composed her poems in English, British Sign Language, and American Sign Language. Her work laid the foundations for modern sign language poetry in the United States and the United Kingdom. She is regarded as the pioneer of BSL poetry and her work influenced many contemporary Deaf poets.
Jeff McWhinney was born in 1960 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is a leader in the UK deaf community.
Strategic essentialism, a major concept in postcolonial theory, was introduced in the 1980s by the Indian literary critic and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. It refers to a political tactic in which minority groups, nationalities, or ethnic groups mobilize on the basis of shared gendered, cultural, or political identity to represent themselves. While strong differences may exist between members of these groups, and amongst themselves they engage in continuous debates, it is sometimes advantageous for them to temporarily "essentialize" themselves, despite it being based on erroneous logic, and to bring forward their group identity in a simplified way to achieve certain goals, such as equal rights or antiglobalization.
Clive Mason is a Deaf Scottish television presenter and actor.
Deafhood is a term coined by Paddy Ladd in his book Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood. While the precise meaning of the word remains deliberately vague—Ladd himself calls Deafhood a "process" rather than something finite and clear—it attempts to convey an affirmative and positive acceptance of being deaf.
The Centre for Deaf Studies was a department of the University of Bristol, England, in the field of deaf studies, which it defines as the study of the "language, community and culture of Deaf people". Established in 1978, the Centre claimed to be the first higher educational Institute in Europe "to concentrate solely on research and education that aims to benefit the Deaf community". The centre was at the forefront in establishing the disciplines of deaf studies and deafhood. It used British Sign Language (BSL), had a policy of bilingual communication in BSL and English, and employed a majority of deaf teaching staff.
Deaf studies are academic disciplines concerned with the study of the deaf social life of human groups and individuals. These constitute an interdisciplinary field that integrates contents, critiques, and methodologies from anthropology, cultural studies, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, social studies, and sociology, among others. The field focuses on the language, culture, and lives of the deaf from the social instead of the medical perspective.
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written with a lower case d. It later came to be used in a cultural context to refer to those who primarily communicate through sign language regardless of hearing ability, often capitalized as Deaf and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. The two definitions overlap but are not identical, as hearing loss includes cases that are not severe enough to impact spoken language comprehension, while cultural Deafness includes hearing people who use sign language, such as children of deaf adults.
Sophie Leigh Stone is an English stage and television actress. She was the first deaf student to win a place at the drama school RADA. she is best known for her roles as Louise in Two Doors Down and Doctor Who as Cass.
Bencie Woll FAAAS is an American–British linguist and scholar of sign language. She became the first professor of sign language in the United Kingdom when she was appointed Professor of Sign Language and Deaf Studies at City University, London in 1995. In 2005, she moved to University College London where she became Professor of Sign Language and Deaf Studies and Director of the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL).
Paul Scott is an English poet and activist. He is deaf and uses British Sign Language (BSL).
Audrey Cameron is a Chancellor's Fellow working at the University of Edinburgh. She is Deaf and uses British Sign Language.
Clark Denmark is a British activist, lecturer and interpreter. He is deaf and a British Sign Language (BSL) user, and he is widely recognised within the Deaf community for his role in advancing the recognition and wider understanding of BSL.
Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq is a British Muslim artist based in London. She is deaf and a British Sign Language user.
Caroline Parker is an English actor, comedian and performer. She is deaf and a British Sign Language user.
Terence (Terry) Riley (1944-2019), PhD, OBE, was a British deaf rights activist and broadcaster. He was Deaf and a British Sign Language user.
John Smith is a British comedian, actor and performer. He is deaf and a British Sign Language user.
Arthur Verney (1943-2013) was a British Deaf and disability rights campaigner and activist.
