Sign of the times

Illustration by Darcy Ellis

It’s fair to say NZSL may not have become one of three official languages of Aotearoa in 2006 if it weren’t for the work of Te Herenga Waka’s Deaf Studies Research Unit.

The Unit celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2020 and has never stopped communicating and innovating to meet the needs of the NZSL Deaf community.

It recently established a sign language crowdsourcing website, NZSL Share, which has a community of 200 users and more than 50 contributors. This is just the latest of the Unit’s innovations.

“The first dictionary we produced was a print dictionary, which was published in 1997,” says Associate Professor Rachel McKee, who directs the Unit in Te Kura Tātari Reo—School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. “The research behind that helped to start the Unit. Then we created the online dictionary, which went live in 2011 and was updated in 2017.”

The Unit’s Dr Micky Vale is employed with help from the New Zealand government’s NZSL Fund to maintain and update the NZSL Dictionary, along with NZSL Share.

“We are now planning the next update for the online dictionary. The Deaf community is much more widespread now, so rather than using face-to-face meetings to give feedback on signs, we are acknowledging they want to use online methods,” says Micky.

“This saw us conceive and create NZSL Share, where Deaf people can upload signs they noticed aren’t in the dictionary yet but they know are being used. It’s been fascinating to see the words that are added—specific places like cable car, as well as names for people the Deaf community are talking about, like Jacinda Ardern.”

Once signs are agreed on, the Unit goes to the next phase of making official recordings for new dictionary entries.

The coining of new terms occurs similarly in NZSL as with other languages, says Micky. “There are a limited set of things any language does, including borrowing from another language, whether a foreign sign language or spoken language. Two examples of that are the sign for COVID-19, which probably originated in Japan, and the sign for lockdown, which is a transliteration from English.”

Image with 'Victorious' repeated over and over.

“In the past, Deaf people met each other and signed in person in particular situations, like at a social or sports event, so the purpose of how they used language was linked to those situations. But now we have the development of something more closely linked to broadcasting in NZSL, where people post announcements, information, and explanations.”
– Associate Professor Rachel McKee

NZSL is rapidly changing and the Unit was awarded a grant for 2021–2023 from the Marsden Fund for research into the development of new genres in NZSL, including how te reo Māori concepts are being expressed in Māori settings and changes caused by modern communication modes.

“In the past, Deaf people met each other and signed in person in particular situations, like at a social or sports event, so the purpose of how they used language was linked to those situations,” says Rachel.

“But now we have the development of something more closely linked to broadcasting in NZSL, where people post announcements, information, and explanations. There are also new developing styles or genres occurring because of the internet, as well as a lot more exposure to other sign languages from overseas.”

One of the biggest arbiters of change in NZSL recently was the advent of COVID-19. Rachel supported interpreters behind the scenes as they grappled with new vocabulary for COVID-19-related terms. “The national Deaf association, Deaf Aotearoa, also took a very active role,” she says.

“All through last year, there were Deaf people involved in translating information to the world, providing signed translations of information, and putting it online. It was a negotiated process between interpreters and Deaf people doing that work.”

Although there is still work to be done in the early education NZSL space, the work of the Unit and its NZSL research allows the Deaf community to participate more equitably than ever before in New Zealand society.

Victorious

Crowdsourcing is one of the innovative ways the Deaf Studies Research Unit ensures its New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Dictionary keeps up to date with new words.

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