Modeling Visual Language (Wink Smith)

*Presented in ASL*

Educational interpreters are language models for Deaf students. For some Deaf students, their interpreter is their only language model for a signed language. 

This workshop will help you explore the meaning of being a ‘language model’ and how this modeling impacts students acquiring at least two languages within the school system, American Sign Language and English. 

The workshop then introduces concepts from cognitive linguistics to analyze how language provides access to knowledge structures through categorization and how each language provides a specific ways of viewing, or construing, that knowledge. 

With this foundation in place, you will then review and practice the depictive components of ASL. You will learn how each concept is used in the spoken language community, and then how the Deaf community has further specified and evolved these depictions into language and modality-specific units. After practicing these concepts, you will use real-world classroom stimuli to practice further entrenching these depictive techniques. One final goal in this workshop is to work toward becoming comfortable with using conventional depictive expressions in the ways, and with the frequency, that Deaf people do. 

Educational Objectives

At the conclusion of this program participants will be able to:

Participants will be able to define at least one role of a language model, the role of developing conceptual content via myriad of depiction devices Participants will be able to define metonymy and give one example of how it is used in depictive devices in ASL Participants will be able to demonstrate how the English word photosynthesis can be metonymically depicted in ASL

WINK JR.

Wink, MA, MBA, NIC Master, enjoys researching and creating various workshops that focus on skill building through deliberate practice, which he wrote about in the RID Views, Winter 2012 issue. Presenting workshops the last ten years at national conferences (NAD, RID, Silent Weekend) regional conferences (RID I, II, III, IV, V), state conferences, and local workshops across the nation has given Wink experiences to enhance applications for interpreters of all levels. Wink is widely noted for the comfortable atmosphere he creates and the passion he exudes. Currently Wink travels full time performing, presenting workshops, and managing Winkshop, Inc, through which he has developed a dozen training DVDs. A fun fact: in 2016 alone, Wink traveled professionally enough miles to circle the earth over three times.

Website: winkasl.com