The Survey of SASL Place Names
Signed toponomastics, the study of place names in signed languages, is a niche focus area internationally. Our department initiated the pioneering research project, the Survey of South African Sign Language (SASL) in 2021. The aim is to address the knowledge gap regarding the SASL toponomy by systematically collecting and documenting SASL place names. A sociolinguistic analysis is included to contextualise the variation found in the dataset. In 2022, the Department paired up with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures (ICDF) to collaborate on the project, ‘Advancing SASL for 4IR Technological Development Using Place Names’ (April 2022 — June 2025). We remained responsible for the sociolinguistic component of the project, with the ICDF taking the lead on the computational aspect. Our focus is now to continue processing SASL toponymic data.
Our Department has been established as the international leading entity on signed toponymy research. Locally, we have added value by conducting research that focusses on a positive aspect of the Deaf community, in other words, place names as meaningful cultural expression.
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