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Items starting with S

Sign Languages (N)

Sign languages, plural, because every country has its own sign language, and some countries have more than one, for example Belgium with Flemish (VGT) and French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) , and Spain with Spanish (LSE) and Catalan Sign Language (LSC).

Sign languages are natural languages each with its own lexicon and grammar. Sign languages have in common that they use the hands, face and body as 'articulators'. 

Sign language is NOT :

    • universal. There are between 138 and 300 different sign languages being used around the world.
    • a word-by-word translation of a spoken language. In education, teachers sometimes speak and sign at the same time to teach children the spoken language in a visual way. To transmit the exact surface structure of a spoken sentence (instead of its meaning) - for example to sign articles, function words and affixes and suffixes - artificial and usually cumbersome signs have been invented. This is not sign language, but an artificial, and for sign language users unnatural code, usually called 'signed English', 'signed French', etc. 
    •  a letter-by-letter spelling of words with the hands. Letter-by-letter spelling is called fingerspelling and is used for instance for names.

Social Model of Disability

"Where the pathology paradigm asks questions such as “what is wrong with the individual?”, the social model of disability asks questions such as “what are the barriers to accessibility and inclusion?”

(..)

The social model seeks to uncover and change how institutions and cultural norms disable individuals due to lack of understanding, acceptance, and accommodation."

socialmodel

Text and illustration by Jillian Enright: The Social Model of Disability, 2021

Sponsor (N, V)

A sponsor is a person or organization that pays for all or part of the costs for an event or product, in return for advertising. 

To sponsor: to pay for all or some of the costs of an event or product, in return for advertising. 

Subaltern (A)

"The Subaltern perspective stands for understanding the society through conditions of subordination of people belonging to the different caste, class, age, gender, race etc.

It seeks to present an alternate image of society through the viewpoint of the masses usually unrepresented. It seeks to restore a balance by highlighting the role of the masses as against the elites in political and social movements .

It treats peasants, tribal and other marginalized sections of the society as the makers of their own history ."

Source: https://www.sociologyguide.com/theoretical-perspectives-in-sociology/subalternPerspective.php