Deaf Ways of Writing Narratives: a Bilingual Approach

Abstract

This chapter investigates the writing process in narratives by Greek deaf students in two different conditions: a) translation from Sign Language into written Greek from video stimuli and b) direct composition in written Greek from picture stimuli. Following language assessments, the deaf students were divided into three language groups according to their differing abilities in Greek Sign Language and Greek. Two parameters were manipulated: language skills and source material used for writing. The study aims to answer the questions: a) How do the different groups make use of the source material (which students benefit from the use of sign language?) b) Which material produces better written texts? Four qualitative analyses have been undertaken on the texts: amount/type of information given, organisation of information, grammatical characteristics of the text, and error analysis. The results show that the use of sign language in the writing process has positive effects only on specific groups and on specific aspects of writing.