Ingela Holmström

Stockholm University | SU · Department of Linguistics

(Article available with Open Access through DOI) Upon arrival in Sweden, adult migrants are required to learn Swedish at the earliest opportunity. This requirement also extends to deaf migrants, regardless of their linguistic and educational backgrounds. This paper presents findings and experiences derived from a project focused on the multilingua...

Disabled people encounter numerous barriers to accessibility and face discrimination and inequalities in their daily lives. The situation is even more complex for migrants with a disability, who have to learn how to navigate a new bureaucratic system. This study focuses on deaf adult migrants and the linguistic and bureaucratic challenges they face...

There is a lack of tests available for assessing sign language proficiency among L2 learners. We have therefore developed a sign repetition test, SignRepL2, with a specific focus on the phonological features of signs. This paper describes the two phases of developing this test. In the first phase, content was developed in the form of 50 items with...

This article highlight and discuss the complex situation when deaf adults who are emergent readers learn Swedish Sign Language (STS) and Swedish in parallel. As Swedish appears primarily in its written form, they also have to develop reading and writing skills. Study data comes from ethnographically created video recordings of classroom interaction...

Milani & Salö (eds.). https://www.studentlitteratur.se/kurslitteratur/sprakvetenskap-och-sprakdidaktik/flersprakighet-sva-och-sfi/sveriges-nationella-minoritetssprak---nya-sprakpolitiska-perspektiv/ TOC: 1. Minoritetsspråkspolitik och sociolingvistiska verkligheter - Linus Salö (Stockholms universitet) och Tommaso M. Milani (Göteborgs universite...

In the last decade, Sweden has received many deaf migrants with very diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds. When arriving in Sweden, they are expected to learn Swedish Sign Language (STS) and Swedish. For this study, we have used data from project Mulder, a four-year research project that aims to generate knowledge about deaf migrants’ mul...

This article is based on data from an empirical research project on the multilingual situation of deaf migrants in Sweden. Deaf migrants attending folk high schools are a heterogeneous group with various language and educational backgrounds. Some of them have grown up with limited or no access to a spoken or signed language while others have grown...

In second language research, the concept of cross-linguistic influence or transfer has frequently been used to describe the interaction between the first language (L1) and second language (L2) in the L2 acquisition process. However, less is known about the L2 acquisition of a sign language in general and specifically the differences in the acquisit...

Communication is an important but complicated issue for parents to deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. Professionals have debated whether a DHH-child should have opportunity to learn spoken language, sign language, or a mixture of both. Two perspectives dominate: the medical (viewing deafness as a disability) vs. the cultural-lingual (viewing...

A growing body of research focusses on migration issues for deaf migrants, particularly those in forced migration and resettlements. Despite this, knowledge is limited regarding their situation, opportunities and obstacles in the new host country. In recent years, the Nordic countries have seen a growing number of deaf migrants arriving, many of th...

When considering deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) population, research recognizes that fatigue due to communication challenges and multi-focal attention allocation is a significant concern. Given the putative heightened demands of distance learning on deaf and hard of hearing students, we investigate how an online environment might differently affect...

Vision is considered a privileged sensory channel for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students to learn, and, naturally, they recognize themselves as visual learners. This assumption also seems widespread among schoolteachers, which led us to analyse the intersection between teachers’ beliefs on deaf and hard of hearing students’ academic achievemen...

This chapter provides insight into the progress and current status of a national sign bilingual program, with a special focus on the linguistic situation. The chapter begins with a historical overview and a description of sign bilingual education in Sweden and how it has changed during the last four decades, due in great part to advancements in hea...

Drawing upon ethnographic data from two projects, this paper focuses on interpretation issues in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals’ everyday lives. A specific issue is the importance of and the ways in which interpretation services and Swedish – Swedish Sign Language interpreters shape their experiences and participation. Three themes are...

Most second language (L2) learning happens in the same modality, i.e., a learner who has a spoken language as the first language most commonly learns additional spoken languages as L2. In such language acquisition cases, learners can build on what they already physically know about how to express language. But, if they begin to learn a sign languag...

This chapter provides an overview of the existing knowledge, methods, and practices in the use of sign language to teach writing to deaf learners who use sign language as their first language (L1). It proffers a theoretical background that lays the foundation for using L1 sign language as the language of instruction for teaching writing to the lear...

This report is an overview of the sign language research in Sweden and internationally during the 2000's. Written in Swedish. Det finns många olika inriktningar inom teckenspråksforskningen idag och en avsevärd mängd studier utifrån olika perspektiv och på olika språkliga nivåer. I den här forskningsrapporten görs en översikt över svensk och inter...

The key aim of the study presented in this poster is to illustrate the nature of accessibility and participation in the current provision of the Swedish county councils’ interpretation services for young deaf adults. Since interpretation services are affiliated to the health care system, deaf people in Sweden are often considered and treated as pat...

his study focuses on a Swedish Sign Language (STS) interpreting education, in which the students learn a second language (L2) that is expressed in the visual-gestural modality instead of the auditory-vocal one. Due to the lack of research on sign language L2 instruction, the teachers have limited scientific knowledge and proven experience to lean o...

This article focuses on the similar approaches to, yet different contexts of legal recognition of sign languages in Sweden and Norway. We use examples from sign language documentation (both scientific and popular), legislation that mentions sign language, organization of implementation of sign language acquisition, and public discourse (as expresse...

This pre-study focuses on deaf adult refugees' linguistic situation in Sweden. More specifically, the pre-study examine how deaf refugees are identified and received, how they are placed in different educational institutions and what the aim is with the placements. Also, of particular interest for the pre-study is to identify particular problems or...

Det finns i Sverige runt 2000 personer under 65 år med dövblindhet. En andel av dem är döva sedan barndomen och har förvärvat sin synnedsättning senare i livet. De har då vanligen svenskt teckenspråk som sitt förstaspråk och har i takt med att synen blivit sämre övergått till att använda sig av taktilt teckenspråk som är en del av det svenska tecke...

At Stockholm University, a BA program in Swedish Sign Language (SSL) and interpreting is offered. Most students who enter into the program are beginners with no prior knowledge in SSL when they join. In the first year, most of the courses focus on teaching the students practical signing and on building their knowledge and skills in SSL. The UTL2 pr...

This is a report from the project UTL2 that focuses teaching sign language as L2 at Stockholm University, Sweden. The report is written in Swedish, but it exists a proceeding from a conference that sum up this research in English too.

A ‘sign bilingual’ education was implemented across Sweden for deaf children in 1983, entailing a visually-oriented bilingual modal wherein the languages of instruction were Swedish Sign Language (SSL) and Swedish (in the subsequent national curriculum revision in 1996, this became framed as SSL and written-Swedish). As one of the first countries i...

This paper focuses on the similar approaches that frame the different contexts of the legal recognition accorded to signed languages in Sweden and Norway. It illustrates that factors other than formal legislation seem to be more influential when the status of signed languages and signed language ideologies are discussed. By comparing the legal reco...

In a few universities around the world courses are offered where the primary language of instruction is a national sign language. Many of these courses are given by bilingual/multilingual deaf lecturers, skilled in both national sign language(s) and spoken/written language(s). Research on such deaf-led practices in higher education are lacking, and...

The number of pupils with cochlear implant (CI) has seen a sharp increase in public schools in Sweden. This study focuses on communicative strategies in inclusive classrooms where pupils with CI are members. The empirical ethnographic data comes from two mainstream classrooms in Sweden where pupils and adults use a range of technologies, and strate...

Although once placed solely in deaf schools, a growing number of deaf students in Sweden are now enrolling in mainstream schools. In order to maintain a functional educational environment for these students, municipalities are required to provide a variety of supporting resources, e.g. technological equipment and specialized personnel. However, the...

This paper reports upon some of the overarching findings from project CIT (www.oru.se/project/cit) at the CCD research network based environment in Sweden. It highlights the ways in which individuals and institutions both use and also account for the roles that technologies, particularly hearing-technologies (like sound amplifying technologies, out...

Different technologies are commonly used in mainstream classrooms to teach pupils who wear surgically implanted cochlear hearing aids. We focus on these technologies, their application, how pupils react to them, and how they affect mainstream classrooms in S weden. Our findings indicate that language ideologies play out in specific ways in such tec...

In Sweden, deaf pupils were traditionally placed in segregated deaf schools. However, during the last decade, the number of children attending mainstream schools after receiving cochlear implants (CIs) has increased dramatically, resulting in lower attendance at deaf schools. Despite the significance of this trend, there exists little knowledge reg...

This thesis examines technological framings for communication and identity issues, with a particular focus on Swedish mainstream schools where children with cochlear implants are pupils. Based on a sociocultural perspective on learning, the thesis focuses on how pupils and teachers interact with (and thus learn from) each other in classroom setting...

This article presents results from a study based on archival data from periodicals published by three Swedish non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the field of deafness and hard of hearing. A sociohistorical analysis of the material, which covers more than a century, from 1890 to 2010, highlights that technologies have specifically impac...