The LSDS colloquium builds upon six papers that explore the intersections between the multidisciplinary domains of Language Studies and Deaf Studies. Under the overarching theme of languaging and at least one of the three following sub-themes: learning sites, social practices inside and outside institutional settings, contested concepts and categories, the individual papers present theoretically framed empirical research where issues of time and space are engaged with.

Going beyond the dominant binary ideological and normative stance on language issues within the area of deafness scholarship, the colloquium as a whole center-stages research that explores the mundane nature of languaging in “visually-oriented” sites across time and space. With the spotlight on the performatory dimensions of language itself, issues related to modality pluralism (written, signed and oral semiotic resources) and the use of more than one language variety across time and space in (i) social practices and/or (ii) the emergence, shifts and location of what is understood as communication broadly (and language specifically) in textual data (for instance in research literature or archival data), the colloquium contributes to an emerging frontline in the Deaf Studies scholarship. The contributors are scholars who work in teams where members are versatile users of one or more signed language varieties and the Deaf/Hearing-World (Bagga-Gupta 2016). Center-staging empirically framed research on language, including identity-positions across textual-virtual-real life sites, this group of papers attempts to mainstream issues related to languaging from alternative data-sets and perspectives.

Contributors explore different theoretical approaches within the domains of Language Studies and Deaf Studies. These include sociocultural perspectives, decolonial framings, linguistic landscaping, critical theory, theory of multimodal communication, that enable systematic explorations of a variety of data. Each of the six contributions in this colloquium builds upon original empirical work. Two discussants will offer critical reflections on the contributions.

Bagga-Gupta, S. 2016. Signed Languages in Bilingual Education. In: Stephan May (General Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education. O. García & A. M.Y. Lin (Eds.) Volume 5: Bilingual and Multilingual Education. (1-15). Rotterdam: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02324-3_12-1