Intelligibility as a Methodological Problem in the Rehearsal Spaces of Apple Time, a Signed Play

In this study, we investigate the impact of American Sign Language (ASL) playbuilding on the language practices of culturally and linguistically diverse deaf high school students. Students’ learning of ASL takes place in an inclusive secondary school environment in a small midwestern Canadian city. This study explores ways in which participants develop linguistic repertoires through the production of a play involving eight deaf youth actors supported by a production team consisting of a nondeaf director, a nondeaf teacher, a deaf teacher, and a deaf elder volunteer. Analysis of participant interactions during the processes of language teaching and learning and meaning-making in the context of daily school surroundings and activities supports the assertion that intelligibility of perceptions situated in deaf and nondeaf ontologies is a methodological problem.