Bethany Ashley

[have] [have doubts] [harbour doubts] is a poetry collection that somewhat charts my desire and progress to qualify as a British Sign Language interpreter. The tri-part structure demonstrates three approaches to the work over the three years of writing it. [have] begins with relative traditionalism, [have doubts] remains a single poem section representing the disruption and grief of the pandemic, and the collection concludes in the sequence [harbour doubts]. This experimentational translation from BSL to English features a linguistic commentary that explores the literal and figurative symbolism of BSL while antagonising a personal narrative.

The critical component of my research includes a chapter that is an autoethnographic exploration of exophonic language learning and another chapter that explores representations of signed and spoken languages in work from contemporary d/Deaf writers. 

My PhD is funded by the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership and I am grateful for the training grants I have received from the consortium that have supported my studies of British Sign Language.