Krister Schönström Docent

I teach in the course Swedish Sign Language from a contrastive perspective on the Bachelor's Program in Sign Language and Interpreting. I also teach in various courses related to Swedish Sign Language and sign language linguistics. Additionally, I supervise students at both undergraduate and advanced levels, as well as doctoral candidates.

My research interests include issues related to the multilingualism of deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Primarily, this concerns their language acquisition and language use. I am particularly interested in the bimodal aspect of their bilingualism, which includes both sign language and spoken language. Additionally, I am interested in the visual aspect of their language acquisition, such as what it means to learn Swedish (or a written/spoken language) without hearing.

I am leading the project "Promoting the reading of deaf students in sign language-based classrooms," funded by the Swedish Institute for Educational Research (Skolfi). I am also involved in the VR-funded project "The multilingual situation of deaf refugees in Sweden" (Mulder).

I am also very interested in issues related to second language acquisition of sign language and have authored several articles in this area and led the project "From speech to sign - learning Swedish Sign Language as a second language," funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) 2017-2019.

Another project I am involved in is "Better communication in individuals with congenital deafblindness", funded by FORTE, together with colleagues from, among others, Linköping University.

I am also intreested in various aspects of sign language proficiency and have developed several different tests and assessments in Swedish sign language used to assess sign language proficiency among various groups of sign language users.