Student profiles
Elizabeth Train-Brown
Email: B.Train-Brown@Lancaster.ac.uk
Linkedin: Linkedin.com/in/BethTrainBrown
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Dr Oliver K Langmead
Dr Ines Gregori Labarta
Dr Sara Wasson
Research Summary
No published contemporary fantasy books are narrated by D/deaf characters. Among a sea of such highly-developed fantasy languages – Elvish, High Valyrian, Krypton – that can even be studied and learned, there are no constructed sign languages.
There is a crisis in Sign Language communities. AI-driven sign language recognition threatens jobs, culture, and Deaf sovereignty. Recognised as an official language just two years ago, British Sign Language (BSL) was afforded a translation by less than half of government departments ten months after the BSL Act 2022 and Wales has now pulled plans for a BSL GCSE.
Fantasy allows a culture a highly creative means of telling stories about itself, so why should certain minority groups be excluded because of their expressive form? Especially now, when their communities are shrinking.
Working with Deaf organisations and BSL communities, my research will compose fantasy sign language in three ways: (1) a collection of primary interviews with sign-users on their relationship with sign, (2) a critical framework of logistical methods in creating a fantasy sign language by analysing impact of world-building, character, and form, (3) a fantasy novel narrated by two D/deaf characters who construct sign language in different ways.
Research Interests
Deaf identity, sign language, fantasy novels, genre fiction.
Publications
Train-Brown, Elizabeth, ‘Bleed’, in The Masters’ Anthology, ed. by Colin Davies, et al. (Lancaster University Press, 2024), pp. 111-124
Train-Brown, Elizabeth, salmacis: becoming not quite a woman (London: Renard Press, 2022)
Train-Brown, Elizabeth, ‘The Vampire and Hedonism: Reading Fan Study’, Cut/To, 1.1 (2021), 14-19, <https://media.journoportfolio.com/users/144585/uploads/07d2a731-5ac5-41d8-882f-e9adb026b115.pdf>
Train-Brown, Elizabeth, ‘Poaching to Domestication: The Future of Fan Theory and the Power of the Reader’, in The Future of Text, ed. by Frode Alexander Hegland (London: Future Text Publishing, 2020), <https://futuretextpublishing.com/download/Future_of_Text_Book_2020.pdf>