The Linguistic Life of the Kufr Qassem Deaf Community: Language Emergence, Persistence, Change, and Variation

This thesis explores the unique sociolinguistic situation of the deaf community in the Palestinian town of Kufr Qassem (in what is now known as Israel), focusing on Kufr Qassem Sign Language (KQSL), a local sign language that emerged 90 years ago due to a high incidence of hereditary deafness. Today, KQSL is at risk of going extinct due to an extreme language shift to ISL. The thesis consists of three studies. The first situates KQSL within the broader context of Israel's sign language diversity. Israel is known for having several hyper-localised sign languages especially in Arab towns and villages. This study analyses historical, social, and political factors that contribute to this unusual language diversity. The second study examines how signers in the Kufr Qassem deaf communities tell stories using different types of signs. These sign types, when used to represent and identify referents throughout a narrative (referent tracking), make use of different "semiotic strategies". The study examines how factors like educational and sociolinguistic background across cohorts affect semiotic strategy and referent tracking in a narrative from a short silent film. The third study extends the second study, comparing semiotic diversity in narratives produced by deaf Kufr Qassem and British signers, exploring if and how factors different across communities such as language age, social networks, and language contact affect the use of semiotic modes. KQSL emerged and exists in a unique multilingual multimodal situation, and documenting it is an important contribution to linguistic diversity research. However, research documenting this language is limited. The aim of this work is to document aspects of KQSL and language use in the Kufr Qassem deaf community, highlighting the cultural value of maintaining an endangered language within the Palestinian deaf community in Israel. It adds to our understanding of language diversity and preservation of culture and language in marginalized communities.