Dr Rachel McKee is an Associate Professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Professional experience working as a sign language interpreter in NZ and USA led to an academic career in applied sign linguistics. Along with Dr David McKee, Rachel has establishing training programmes for sign language interpreters (at AUT), NZSL teacher training, and NZSL as a language at Victoria University of Wellington. Her research has spanned documentation of NZSL (lexicon and grammar), sociolinguistic variation, NZSL teaching and learning, interpreting studies, and language policy and planning issues. Rachel was the founding president of the Sign Language Interpreters Association of NZ and a member of the inaugural NZSL Board which advises government on implementation of the NZSL Act 2006. Growing up in the 1960s-70s next door to the University of Waikato, Rachel was exposed to seminal leaders and educational activities in the early revitalisation of Te Reo Māori. This, and witnessing the Deaf Pride movement in the USA in the 1980s, were formative to her understanding that the social status of Deaf people as a linguistic minority in Aotearoa could be raised through critical language awareness, an overarching goal that motivates her contribution as a hearing ally of the NZSL community. ​

NZSL in the public gaze
 
Applied Linguistics research on New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) since the 1980s has been key to laying a foundation for promoting the status and use of NZSL. In 2020, the Covid-19 response brought NZSL into the public gaze in a way that was, ‘unprecedented’. MIQ, genome sequencing, contact tracing, clusters, fiscal packages ... as a whole new conceptual world unfolded for everyone, the informational challenges for the NZSL community played out partly in the public glare of official media briefings. Linguistic issues associated with this prompted my research team to analyse Covid (and other) neologisms in NZSL and the experience of NZSL interpreters mediating the government pandemic response. My presentation will not centre on the pandemic, but this event usefully illustrates wider questions around changing form and function in modern NZSL, such as these: How are new communicative purposes and online modes of use affecting change in NZSL lexicon and style? What are some slipstream effects of language recognition - such as language commodification associated with growth of an L2 industry and language promotion, and the expansion of ‘new speakers’ around the core NZSL community. What ideological work is NZSL doing in the linguistic landscape vis a vis identity representation and inclusion/access? These aren’t the questions that people typically ask me about NZSL, but they are ones that have motivated my recent research and offer windows on current applied issues in NZSL that I will address in my presentation.