!Special Lecture「Japanese Culture」In Three Case Studies… Or, “So, what`s it like to live in Japan?”

Student and faculty guests from the College of Charleston are visiting our university this week. We have a very long, close and important reltionship with this college, so the Center for International Education is rolling out the red carpet and pulling out the top guns for a sample Japanese class, lecture on Japanese business and lecture on Japnese culture. I have been tasked with the last. So how am I supposed to explain the complexities of Japanese culture in 90 minutes? To be honest, the longer I have been in Japan, the less I seem to understand.

Around the time I was conscripted for this lecture, I had the pleasure of meeting my cousin's daughter's husband (or first cousin once removed-in-law), Preston. After talking for a while, Preston asked me, "so, what's it like to live in Japan?" I was taken back by this question, no one has asked me this in a long time. I tried to briefly explain my family, neighborhood, job and research. Then it dawned on me, why not organize my lecture in a similar way and call them case studies. So I will be talking about my neighborhood (with a focus on my research of its fall festival), my major research subject (Deaf communities and sign language) and my passion (the Hanshin Tigers).

Thanks, Preston!

I am providing some resources below for my lecture audience (and others who might be interested) with more details about the case studies.

1) My Neighborhood (in Kadoma-shi): Focus on the Fall Festival

Sources:

祭り Matsuri Photo Exhibition 写真展: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2024/01/matsuri-photo-exhibition.html

Japanese Anthropology Workshop (JAWS) Newsletter No. 53: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2025/04/announcement-new-jaws-newsletter.html

Distributed Multimodalities: Ethnographic Experiments in Memory and Performance: https://distributedmultimodalities.carrd.co/

Distributed Multimodalities on VAoJ: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/search?q=Distributed+Multimodalities%3A+Ethnographic+Experiments+in+Memory+and+Performance

Fall Festival on VAoJ: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/search?q=fall+festival

2) My Primary Research: Deaf Communities and Sign Language

Sources:

「A Primer on Deaf Communities in Japan: Identity, Sign Language and Diversity」@YCAPS, Getting to Know Japan Webinar (2024): https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2024/06/announcementa-primer-on-deaf.html

The Embodiment of the Deaf in Japan: A Set of Heuristic Models for Identity, Belonging and Sign Language Use (2023): https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2024/01/theres-nothing-like-holding-real-book.html

Sign language, what is it? An ESCAP guide towards legal recognition of sign languages in Asia and the Pacific (2022): https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2023/05/new-publication-from-united-nations.html

Representations of Deaf People in Japan: Inspiration, Outrage and Real Life (2021): https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2021/05/representations-of-deaf-people-in-japan.html

Barrier-Free Communication for the Deaf in Japan: A Local Initiative for Medical Interpretation Services in Japanese Sign Language (2021): https://kansaigaidai.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=8036&file_id=19&file_no=1

Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan (2019): https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

Living Partial Truths: HIV/AIDS in the Japanese Deaf World (2006): https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2007/08/hivaids-in-japan.html

Deaf and Sign Language on VAoJ: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/search?q=deaf+sign+language

3) My Passion: Hanshin Tigers

Sources:

Hanshin Tigers Webpage (in Japanese): https://hanshintigers.jp/

Food Terrorism and Japanese Baseball: A Hanshin Tigers Case Study@SWCAS 11/4/23: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2023/11/food-terrorism-and-japanese-baseball.html

Hanshin Tigers on VAoJ: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/search?q=hanshin+tigers

Tokyo International Deaf Arts Festival 2025

For more information: https://shuwanomachi.jp/

New Book Announcement: A LONG time in the making! "Anthropology through the Experience of the Physical Body"

Finally! The new book edited by Kaori Fushiki and Ryoko Sakurada has been published! The origins of this book go back to May, 2014 and the panel "Anthropology through the Experience of the Physical Body" at the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Studies conference in Chiba, Japan. It has been a long and difficult road.

Book description (from Amazon.jp): This book seeks to break new ground, both empirically and conceptually, in examining changing understandings of the physical human body from a variety of anthropological perspectives. In doing so, it interrogates how the body has been and continues to be conceptualised, experienced and interacted with. After an introductory appraisal of recent approaches to understanding the body, the book provides empirically rich accounts from East and Southeast Asia of how cultural, environmental and social norms shape human physicality. The contributions are organised in four broad themes. Part I, ‘Body and Space’, offers two contrasting case studies from Malaysia, both of which examine gender norms associated with marriage and pregnancy, including the taboos associated with these rites of passage. Part II, ‘Imperfect Bodies: Communication and the Body as Media’, analyses two case studies―Deaf people in Japan and masked theatre performance in Bali, Indonesia, to reflect on changing attitudes towards disability, which reflect broader social norms and cultural beliefs about the nature of disability and its place in society. Part III, ‘The Body and Image’, provides a pair of case studies from Singapore, on male fans of the popular manga boys’ love genre and on ways that the Chinese zodiac system is determined from birth and continues to be spiritually embedded in the body of a Chinese individual through ritual practices. Part IV, ‘The Body as Container: Taming the Bodies?’, presents a single case study from Thailand of spirit possession among schoolchildren. Though wide-ranging, all the case studies posit that the body is a site of constant negotiation. The way the body is presented and the way it is seen are shaped by a complex array of social, cultural, political and ideational factors. Anthropology through the Experience of the Physical Body is a valuable interdisciplinary work for advanced students and researchers interested in representations of the body in East and Southeast Asia and for those with wider interests in the field of critical anthropology.

Of interest to VAoJ readers might be chapter 4, The Embodiment of the Deaf in Japan: A Set of Heuristic Models for Identity, Belonging and Sign Language Use. I will post more specifics when I actually receive my own print copy, hopefully soon. It is currently available on Amazon in Kindle format; the print format will be available is March, 2024.

Many thanks to the editors, contributors and production staff.

"第14回国際手話言語学会 - Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research 14: 2022, Osaka, Japan" - September 26- October 1, 2022 - National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku)

TISLR14 will be held at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku). TISLR will be held for the 14th time, but this is the first time it will be held in Asia. For this reason, we have also incorporated a project (panel discussion) that will serve as an opportunity to build a network for sign language linguistics research in Asia. This conference will be held online and onsite in parallel, with consideration given to preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus. We look forward to your active participation and submission of research presentations.　

Date: September 26 (Mon), 2022 - October 1 (Sat), 2022

Venue: Hall at the National Museum of Ethnology
Online and onsite sessions will be held in parallel
National Museum of Ethnology
10-1 Senri Expo Park, Suita, Osaka
565-8511, Japan

Main organizer: National Museum of Ethnology

Schedule:
September 25 (Sun) – 26 (Mon) : Pre-event (Japanese sign language class, Asian sign language workshop, welcome drink [tentative], meeting with interpreters [Presenters are required to attend])
September 27 (Tue) - September 30 (Friday): Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR14)

Official languages: Japanese Sign Language, American Sign Language, International Sign Language, English

https://www.tislr2022.jp/

"Tokyo station trials sound visualization for deaf and hard of hearing"

Photo from Japan Today, June 16, 2022.

Text from The Japan Times, June 16, 2022.

A train station in Tokyo on Wednesday started reproducing platform announcements and the sounds of train arrivals and departures onto a screen in the form of text and sign language to help deaf and hard-of-hearing travelers.

In the trial project that began at Ueno Station and will run through Dec. 14, East Japan Railway aims to provide such travelers with a safer and more convenient travel experience.

In the service developed in conjunction with Fujitsu, station announcements and train sounds collected by microphones are converted into text and onomatopoeic descriptions in real-time using artificial intelligence.

They are then displayed on a screen positioned above a vending machine, with the roar of trains represented by cartoonish fonts and with different sizes to add to the detail provided, with the text changing to represent volume levels, for example. The screen will also show station staff signing commonly used announcements.

On Wednesday morning, the whooshing sound of an approaching Yamanote Line train was expressed with Japanese onomatopoeia. A sign language video was shown to inform passengers that the doors were closing ahead of the train’s departure.

Called Ekimatopeia, a portmanteau of the Japanese word for “station” and the English word “onomatopoeia,” the service is based on ideas that came out of a workshop conducted at a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students last summer in Kawasaki.

“We thought it would be helpful if we could understand what was going on around us through written words. It feels amazing that our idea became a reality. I want it to be displayed in more stations,” said Sora Konno, 18, a student at the school.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/06/15/national/station-sounds-visualized/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1655286685

Short video of the Ekimatopeia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz_LgzSuqYs&t=4s

"American Anthropological Association - Weekend Reads. How Anthropology Can Learn from 'Asia as Method'" - this weekend, too!

Cultural Consumption and Performance in Asia Series
https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/tag/cultural-consumption-and-performance-in-asia/

Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan
https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

"American Anthropological Association - Weekend Reads. How Anthropology Can Learn from 'Asia as Method'"

Asian Ethnology Podcast 2021. Interview with Steven Fedorowicz: Deaf Communities in Japan. Nanzan University. By Mark Bookman. Transcript: https://asianethnology.org/storage/pagefile/Steven%20Fedorowicz%20Interview%20Transcript.pdf

H-ASIA Announcement 「Webinar: Representations of Deaf People in Japan」

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vAeF7_WxQlKdgXnOL2IVfQ

Inquiries (e-mail): nirc-ai-jimu@nanzan-u.ac.jp

Asian Ethnology Podcast 2021. Interview with Steven Fedorowicz: Deaf Communities in Japan. Nanzan University. By Mark Bookman.
Transcript: https://asianethnology.org/storage/pagefile/Steven%20Fedorowicz%20Interview%20Transcript.pdf

Announcement source: https://networks.h-net.org/node/22055/discussions/7632905/webinar-representations-deaf-people-japan

「Deaf-World in Japan」Presentation and Webinar at University of Findlay

This happens on March 17, 2021 @ 8:30 AM Japan time.

BONUS! Click here for additional resources about deaf communities and sign language in Japan.

Vintage Japanese Sign Language Photos (circa 2011 & 2012)

I have been preparing for two presentations about my research with Japanese deaf communities I will be giving in March and May (stay tuned for upcoming details). I came across a couple of collages I crafted for photo exhibitions several years ago featuring facial expression use in JSL. 懐かしい!

手話の顔 日本映像人類学 写真展 (Sign Language Faces: A Visual Anthropology of Japan Photo Exhibition) (2011)

Link: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2011/02/sign-language-faces-visual-anthropology.html

Visual Anthropology of Japan Photo Exhibition: NPO Deaf Support Osaka GALAXY (2012)

Link: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2012/11/visual-anthropology-of-japan-photo.html

"The Journey Towards Inclusive Bilingual Sign Language Schools - Case Study of Meisei Gakuen"

Posted by Visual Anthropology of Japan on Thursday, February 11, 2021

Source: https://www.facebook.com/Wfdeaf.org

ハートネットＴＶ「手話で楽しむみんなのテレビ！～“昔話法廷”編～」 - NHK's Heart-Net TV "TV for everyone who enjoys sign language!" - 「Folktale Court」

Image and Japanese text from NHK's Heart-Net TV.

ＮＨＫの人気番組に手話がつく「手話放送」第２弾！今回は、Ｅテレで話題となったドラマ「昔話法廷」に手話をつけて放送。「さるかに合戦」をモチーフに、カニの親子を殺した猿が法廷で裁かれる。死刑を求めるカニの子ども、涙声で謝罪する猿の台詞を、耳の聞こえないろう者たちが手話で表現する。ＮＨＫ初の手話つきドラマ、果たしてその仕上がりやいかに？手話のできる芸人・河本準一さんをナビゲーターに迎えてお送りする。

Rough summary: A court drama performed in Japanese Sign Language. A monkey character who killed a crap parent and child in an old Japanese folktale is tried in court.

NHK ETV (channel 2)
2020年2月19日(水)　午後8時00分 〜 午後8時30分
Wednesday, 2/19/20, 8:00 pm - 8:30 pm.

Source: https://www.nhk.or.jp/heart-net/program/heart-net/1291/

For more: https://www.nhk.or.jp/heart-net/article/315/

Announcement: Kyoto Asian Studies Group Meeting on September 17, 2019 - “Inspiration Porn and Representations of Deaf People in Japan”

Announcement from H-Japan, September 9, 2019:

The speaker for the September meeting of the Kyoto Asian Studies Group is Steven C. Fedorowicz, who will present “Inspiration Porn and Representations of Deaf People in Japan” (see abstract below).

The talk will be held on Tuesday, September 17th, 18:00-20:00 in Room 212 of the Fusokan on the Doshisha University Campus (see link below for access information).

Abstract

Inspiration Porn and Representations of Deaf People in Japan

This presentation examines so-called "inspiration porn" -- the idealization of disabled people doing everyday tasks (e.g. riding a train, having a job) or for achievements having nothing to do with their particular disability (e.g. deaf athletes) -- and its relationship to disability identities with a focus on deaf people in Japan. Cross-cultural examples, observations and perspectives will be discussed to set up an exploration of how disabled and deaf people are portrayed in various media. Japanese deaf people are often critical of the representations of deaf protagonists and characters in popular television dramas and movies. Such representations create strong but inaccurate images of deafness and sign language that ultimately serve to perpetuate deficit models of disability. On the other hand, representations of disabled/deaf people themselves challenge and add to a social welfare discourse leading to (re)evaluations of societal norms and attitudes towards disability with the ultimate goal of a barrier-free environment. This presentation will also discuss how the Law to Eliminate Discrimination against People with Disabilities (April 2016), Sagamihara Care Home Massacre (July 26, 2016) and upcoming Tokyo 2020 Paralympics have changed and influenced disability discourses and representations.

Steven C. Fedorowicz is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Asian Studies Program, Kansai Gaidai University.

Sponsored by the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies. For access information see:

http://www.doshisha.ac.jp/en/information/campus/imadegawa/imadegawa.html

Please refrain from bringing food or drinks into the meeting room.

Contact: Niels van Steenpaal, nielsvansteenpaal@hotmail.com

About the Kyoto Asian Studies Group:

The KASG is a long-standing Kyoto-based research network that hosts monthly research presentations by experts from various Asian Studies fields. Emphasizing long Q&A sessions, we aim to provide an informal atmosphere in which scholars can freely exchange ideas concerning both finished and in-progress research. Admission is free, and we always welcome new members and presenters.

More advertisements for the recent article...

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/category/section-news/

http://seaa.americananthro.org/category/news/seaa-news/

Society for East Asian Anthropology

More recent stuff that indicates my article is current and relevant...

Illustration borrowed from National Geographic.com.

Soya Mori recently posted about a National Geographic article published a few days ago about the so-called origins of sign language.

"How monks helped invent sign language. (subtitled) Vows of silence and humanist beliefs led European clerics to create new communication methods for the deaf 500 years ago." BY INÉS ANTÓN DAYAS. National Geographic.com. May 28, 2019.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2019/05-06/creation-of-sign-language/?fbclid=IwAR3pJg5dpANNRpRTZfaTj0t3wlFia5cz8T9411N1AtVIl-C-60tSxc2mV5M

The article, simply put, is strangely biased and greatly uninformed.

On the one hand: Bonet criticized some of the brutal methods that had been used to get deaf people to speak: “Sometimes they are put into casks in which the voice booms and reverberates. These violent measures are by no means to the purpose.”

And then in conclusion: Thanks to the development of formal sign languages, people with hearing impairment can access spoken language in all its variety.

The author confuses sign language with manual alphabets (fingerspelling) and signing system for educating the hearing impaired. Thank goodness there were early Europeans to invent these systems for the benefit of the deaf. There is no discussion about natural sign language or Deaf communities.

I hope more people read my article.

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. "Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan." Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

Perfect Timing? It would seem my article is current and relevant...

On the day my article went live, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan went to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to present a proposal to help support deaf children (as reported in the following source):

難聴児のシームレスな支援を 自民党議連が文科相に提言 [The Liberal Democratic Party Parliamentarians propose to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology the seamless support of deaf children] in 教育新聞 [Education Newspaper], June 6, 2019.

URL (article in Japanese): https://www.kyobun.co.jp/news/20190606_04/?fbclid=IwAR3eKSaqvaqXH-dZxOT3v6bqrBszCw-AwIbUAREU6gNqffHULlCG3gPYPIg

Thanks to Soya Mori via Facebook for the heads-up on this. https://www.facebook.com/1Language2Disability/

These LDP members make up a group which can be translated in English as the "National Federation for the Prevention of Deafness." Their proposal included improving neonatal and early childhood hearing testing for all children (early screening). And for deaf children the proposal promotes better medical treatment, early implantation of cochlear implants, better support and training for speech therapists, better placement at special needs schools and the like.

As Mori noted in his comments there was nothing about promoting Japanese Sign Language and the focus was on medical aspects. There seemed to be no Deaf participation in this proposal.

Here it is again (still?). Hearing people are making decisions for the deaf, what I refer to "small-d deaf" orientations in the article. In the article I did not have the time to get into the academic and social welfare models of disability and deafness, namely the deficit/medical model ("small-d deaf") and the cultural/social model ("capital-D Deaf"). For an excellent discussion of these models, especially in the Japanese context I suggest Carolyn Steven's Disability in Japan (2013, Routledge).

So why I am disappointed (although not surprised) by this political development, I am happy with the timing. It would seem my research is current and relevant. I hope more people read my article.

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. "Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan." Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

"Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan" has gone live on Anthropology News!

My photo collage from the article. 

Caption: Members of Japanese Sign Language Atelier practice to 

improve their performance of JSL and create greater Deaf identity.

My new article is now live and available on the Anthropology News website. It appears as part of a Society of East Asian Anthropology series called Cultural Consumption and Performance in Asia. The article is a little different from my usual style but I hope it will serve as an overview and introduction to deaf/sign language issues in Japan.

I would like to thank the SEAA column editors, Shuang Frost and Heidi Lam, for their patience and incredible editing endeavors. I would also like to to thank Elizabeth Kenney, my sensei and colleague, for her support throughout my career as well as her suggestions/editing of an early draft of the article. A shout out to my colleagues in the Asian Studies Program at KGU for their advising and encouragement. Lest I forget my wonderful students from Spring 2019 Deaf World Japan class who allowed me to read this paper as a part of their "midterm review" and gave me helpful constructive criticism comments. I couldn't have done the research without the assistance of Fumie Fedorowicz. And finally, my thanks and appreciation to the members of Atelier in Hirakata-shi as well as my deaf friends throughout Japan.

I benefitted from so much mulitmodal collaborations... However, any errors of interpretation in the article are mine alone.

Please check it out!

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. “Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan.” Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

Happy Halloween! Why Does Kit Kat have Japanese Sign Language on its wrappers?

One of my students showed me a photo of a special Halloween Japanese Kit Kat candy bar with spooky characters doing Japanese Sign Language (JSL) on the wrapper. What? Why? What's going on? So I had to investigate (and buy some of those Kit Kats...)

Kit Kat is popular in Japan because of its many (glocalized) flavors: Green Tea Flavor, Strawberry Cheesecake, Apple Vinegar, Sweet Potato, Wasabi, Sakura, Choco Banana to name a few. For more of this see the recent "In Japan, the Kit Kat Isn’t Just a Chocolate. It’s an Obsession" in The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 24, 2018.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/24/magazine/candy-kit-kat-japan.html

Well, I haven't found very much in my investigation but others have noticed the sign language as well:

My KitKat has Japanese Sign Language on it.

KitKat みんなでハロウィンブレイク！

キットカットの手話イラスト

What's the connection between Kit Kat and sign language? Does anybody know?

The mystery continues with this video (not JSL... Is it a real sign language? If so, what?)



If you know anything, please share! And Happy Halloween!

Deaf Documentary on NHK: "A World of Boisterous Silence"

Screen grab and text from NHK World - Japan.

NHK WORLD PRIME
A World of Boisterous Silence

Broadcast on September 29, 2018

Children who cannot hear learn through sign language at Meisei Gakuen, a school in Tokyo. Their small hands weave together many words. With no narration, the program explores the children's silent, vibrant world and the lives of alumni. The children's eyes sparkle as they recite, in sign language, the poem "The Song of Spring" from their textbook. They do not use their voices. But as we watch the silent recitation, the fresh early spring breeze caresses our cheeks, and tiny veronica flowers bloom in profusion before our eyes. For many decades, Japan's schools for the deaf gave priority to adapting to a society where hearing people are the majority. But at Meisei Gakuen, students are encouraged to embrace their deafness. We turn our eyes to that "boisterous world of silence" and perspectives on Japanese society, as seen by alumni of the school.

Available until October 13, 2018

Source: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/vod/worldprime/3016028/

Of the 90 or so deaf schools in Japan, Meisei Gakuen is the only one that uses Japanese Sign Language (JSL) as its language of instruction. The school has a bicultural (Deaf/Japanese) and bilingual approach (JSL and Japanese) to education. Teachers are both Deaf and hearing. I have visited the school once and found the environment to be very different from other deaf schools that employ oral methods. Please check out this film while it is still available on-line.

Thanks to my former student Bryce for the heads up on this!

"Deaf student plans thesis in sign language"

Photo, chart and story borrowed from The Japan News, October 15, 2015.

A graduate school student, born without the ability to hear, has become the first person in Japan to undertake the challenge of completing a master’s degree thesis through sign language instead of by means of written Japanese.

Shinya Kawabata, 36, studying at the Japan College of Social Work in Kiyose, western Tokyo, has been video recording the sign-language thesis for presentation in DVD format to the graduate school. He has been receiving sign-language instruction from Prof. Kurumi Saito, a specialist in linguistics.

Mitsuji Hisamatsu, chief of the secretariat of the Japanese Federation of the Deaf (JDF), points out the challenges students with hearing disabilities face. “Because answers to examinations and theses at a great majority of universities in Japan have to be written in Japanese, those deaf-mute students who are good at sign language but not so good at the Japanese language have been greatly disadvantaged,” he said.

Kawabata and Prof. Saito aimed to put sign-language theses on the same level as written ones. In exchanges between the two, Kawabata posed such questions as, “How does one quote part of a thesis written by another researcher?” to which Prof. Saito replied, “When you quote a researcher’s thesis for the first time, you should spell out the person’s full name and make it clear what page of the thesis you have made the quotation from.”

In addition to his hearing disability, Kawabata also identifies as gay. After entering the graduate course of the college in April last year, he has been studying methods of supporting “dual minority” individuals who are both deaf-mute and members of one or more sexual minority groups known collectively as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

As the title of his master’s thesis, Kawabata has chosen “Support for the deaf LGBT by means of sign language.”

In addition to describing the current state of the deaf LGBT community, he is incorporating into his thesis key points for social workers to take into account when giving advice to deaf and LGBT persons. These include “being aware of the existence of people who do not belong to the ‘man or woman’ categories” and “refraining from communicating via e-mail at times when face-to-face sign language communication is necessary.”

Because sign language and the Japanese language differ widely in both vocabulary and grammar, many deaf-mute people find it hard to read and write in Japanese. Kawabata is literate in Japanese to some extent, but has found it difficult to write a master’s degree thesis in the language.

Prof. Saito thus came up with a proposal in July that led college authorities to change the rule on graduate school theses and agree to accept “sign-language theses” in addition to ones written in Japanese and English. Prof. Saito noted that Kawabata’s sign-language master’s thesis is the first to be undertaken in Japan.

For the project, Kawabata uses video cameras and other devices to record himself signing the contents of respective chapters. After sending the recorded chapters to Prof. Saito for review, Kawabata rerecords them in response to instructions given by the professor in sign language or through e-mails. His goal is to capture each chapter in a 10-minute video.

“Although I earlier thought that, in spite of the difficulties, there would be no alternative to writing my thesis in Japanese, I now feel relieved that presentation of my thesis in sign language has been approved,” he said with a smile. As Prof. Saito put it, “I earnestly wished to enable Kawabata to produce his thesis in sign language, by which he will be able to express whatever meaning he wishes to convey.”

Kawabata finished recording the thesis in mid-September, with the finished product constituting about two hours of video in total. After undergoing one more round of review by Prof. Saito, the thesis is scheduled to be transferred to DVD format for presentation to the graduate school in January next year. A Japanese translation of the thesis, completed with the help of a sign language interpreter, will be added to the DVD as reference material, the professor said.

“We would like to see this country turn into a society in which everyone is able to express his or her ideas and opinions in either Japanese or sign language and receive appropriate evaluations for each of them,” Hisamitsu said.

Measures for popularizing sign language have been spreading both at home and abroad.

In 2006, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with the aim of positioning sign language as equal to spoken languages and helping expand the places in which sign language can be used. About 50,000 people use sign language in Japan, according to a survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry conducted in 2006.

The number of local governments that have issued “sign language promotion ordinances” to encourage the use of sign language currently stands at 18 across the country, including Tottori and Kanagawa prefectures. Services for helping people use sign language have also been increasing among local municipalities and in the private sector.

Source: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002465783