Words in Motion
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('MMM') }}
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('YYYY') }}
| 16 years and older |
| 10th grade |
| German, German Sign Language |
| Ground Floor, Hall 3 |
| Part of: WeSearch |
People do not speak through words alone – facial expressions, posture, gestures and signs are also part of language. In communities where there are many deaf people or people with limited hearing, these physical movements have developed into fully-fledged languages. One example is Tibetan Sign Language, which developed in Lhasa 25 years ago in the context of urban-rural migration and modernization.
Hands are also used for manual processes. In many Indigenous communities such as the Lhop and Monpa in Bhutan, whose languages and cultural practices are under threat, a rich vocabulary describes local traditions and subtle distinctions, for example in the production of textiles. Language and hand movements form a unity through which we can understand the production of material culture.
Anthropologists Theresia Hofer and Mareike Wulff explain why Tibetan sign language is appreciated in the urban environment of the city of Lhasa, and how Bhutanese craftspeople speak with their hands.
Participants
Sabrina N’Diaye studied ethnology and political science. She learnt the craft of journalism at ZDF, after which she worked for SWR and ARTE. She has been with RBB since 2016, where she presents the rbb24 Spätnachrichten and realizes longer documentaries as an author.
Theresia Hofer is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bristol in the UK. She has been conducting field research in Tibet and the Himalayas for 20 years. She also works as a curator on body and health, language and tactile learning. Her next monograph tells the story of how Tibetan Sign Language came into being some 25 years ago, why deaf people in Lhasa value it so much, and why it now has to make way for Chinese Sign Language.
Mareike Wulff is a social and cultural anthropologist specialising in Bhutan and the Himalayas. She currently holds a postdoctoral position at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Her research project documents the endangered languages and cultural practices of two minority groups in Bhutan, the Lhop and Monpa. Previously, she worked as a lecturer at the Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan and taught the first B.A. students in anthropology in Bhutan. As a studied costume designer and trained dressmaker, she is particularly interested in the production processes, materials used, and the cultural contexts of man-made objects.