Join OC Live for “Signing Black in America” film screening and discussion to follow with Dr. Joseph Hill on Wednesday, September 28th, from 6pm - 7:30pm in the Oxnard College Performing Arts Building (PAB). Just like spoken languages, sign languages have dialects. Black ASL is the unique dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) that developed within historically segregated African American Deaf communities. Largely unknown to outsiders, Black ASL has become a symbol of solidarity and a vital part of identity within the Black Deaf community. This is a FREE event which includes watching the film and then participating in a discussion and Q&A with Dr. Hill via Zoom.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Joseph C. Hill is an Associate Professor in the Department of ASL and Interpreting Education, Associate Director of the Center on Culture and Language, and Assistant Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Retention at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institutes for the Deaf. His research interests include socio-historical and -linguistic aspects of African-American variety of American Sign Language and attitudes and ideologies about signing varieties in the American Deaf community. His contributions include The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure (2011) which he co-authored with Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, and Robert Bayley and Language Attitudes in the American Deaf Community (2012).
