This blog seems to be working again now and I’ve managed to restore the data up to last November. Unfortunately that was the last time I made a backup of the blog, and due to the problems with my old server, it is not possible to recover the data since then. Oh well, lesson learned. I will try to make regular backups from now on.
The forum is also up again, though I haven’t managed to restore any of the old data, so we’ll just have to start anew. Sorry!
In other news, one of the university assignments I’ve been working on is a presentation on bimodal bilinguals – that is people with normal hearing who have deaf parents and grow up fluent in sign language and a spoken language such as English. Unlike other bilinguals who switch between their languages (code switch), bimodal bilinguals can speak and sign at the same time (code blend). Normally the signs and words mean the same thing, though occasionally one adds to the meaning of the other. When speaking, for example, some of the words may be accompanied by signs, and vice versa. It is also possible to use both languages simultaneously, a difficult undertaking known as SimCom (Simultaneous Communication) which is used in educational settings.
I find this topic fascinating as I’m learning British Sign Language as the moment. So when I give my presentation on this, I’ll be able to demonstrate a bit of code-blending.
