Four PhD fellows in sign language, Abey Tesfaye, Pawlos Kassu, Adargachew Deneke Demissie, and Woinshet Girma, are currently visiting MultiLing on a research stay from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. This was reflected in the seminar program, which gave the audience new knowledge about various aspects of Ethiopian Sign Language. Talks were given by our Ethiopian guests as well as PhD candidates from OsloMet, Nord University, and UiO, the fellows’ Norwegian supervisors at NTNU, Associate Professor Rolf Piene Halvorsen from NTNU, and Associate Professor Benjamin Anible from the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.
The seminar was held in English, American Sign Language, and Norwegian Sign Language. All talks and discussions were interpreted to and from American Sign Language and English, by interpreters especially flown in from England for the occasion.
The seminar was organized by Janne Bondi Johannessen, professor at MultiLing and the Norwegian leader of the project Linguistic Capacity Building in Ethiopia, and Jessica Pedersen Belisle Hansen, sign language interpreter and PhD fellow at MultiLing, as well as Rolf Piene Halvorsen and Lindsay Ferrara, both at NTNU.