Joseph Hill Headshot

Joseph Hill

Assistant Dean NTID Faculty Recruitment and Retention

Academic Affairs
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
jchnss@rit.edu

Joseph Hill

Assistant Dean NTID Faculty Recruitment and Retention

Academic Affairs
National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Education

BS, Miami University; MA, Ph.D., Gallaudet University

Bio

Dr. Joseph C. Hill is an Associate Professor in the Department of ASL and Interpreting Education, Associate Director of the Center on Culture and Language, and Assistant Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Retention at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institutes for the Deaf. His research interests include socio-historical and -linguistic aspects of African-American variety of American Sign Language and attitudes and ideologies about signing varieties in the American Deaf community. His contributions include The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure (2011) which he co-authored with Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, and Robert Bayley and Language Attitudes in the American Deaf Community (2012). Link: www.josephchill.com 

jchnss@rit.edu
Personal Links
Personal Website
ORCID
Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar
LinkedIn
Areas of Expertise
Deaf Education Research

Select Scholarship

Invited Article/Publication
Hill, Joseph C. and Eyasu Hailu Tamene. "Hierarchies and Constellations: Language Attitudes and Ideologies of Signed Languages." Journal of Sociolinguistics. (2022). Web.
Hill, Joseph. "Signing Differently: Dialects of American Sign Language in NC." Tar Heel Junior Historian. (2016). Print.
Book Chapter
Hill, Joseph C., Su Kyong Isakson, and Christine Nakahara. "Infusing Social Justice in Interpreting Education." "Signed Language Interpreting Pedagogy: Insights and Innovations from the Conference of Interpreters Trainers." Ed. Laurie Swabey and Rachel E. Herring. Washington, D.C: Gallaudet University Press, 2022. 394-407. Print.
Bayley, Robert, et al. "The Sociolinguistic Ramifications of Social Injustice: The Case of Black ASL." The Routledge Companion to the Work of John R. Rickford. Ed. Renee Blake and Isabelle Buchstaller. Milton Park, Oxfordshire: Taylor and Francis, 2019. 133-141. Print.
Bayley, Robert, et al. "Perceptions of Black American Sign Language." Language Regard: Methods, Variation and Change. Ed. Betsy E Evans, Erica J Benson, and James N Stanford. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 167-182. Print.
Kurz, Kim and Joseph Hill. "The Heart of Interpreting from Deaf Perspectives." Deaf Eyes on Interpreting. Ed. Thomas K Holcomb and David H Smith. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2018. 58-76. Print.
McCaskill, Carolyn, et al. "Citizenship and Education: The Case of the Black Deaf Community." "In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History 1780 - 1970." Ed. Brian H. Greenwald and Joseph J. Murray. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2016. 40-60. Print.
Lucas, Ceil, et al. "Sociolinguistics: Black American Sign Language." "The Deaf Studies Encyclopedia." Ed. Patrick Boudreault and Genie Gertz. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2015. 900-903. Print.
Journal Paper
Panko, Tiffany L., et al. "The Deaf Community's Experiences Navigating COVID-19 Pandemic Information." Health Literacy Research and Practice 5. 2 (2021): e162-e170. Print.
Occhino, Corrine, et al. "New Trends in ASL Variation Documentation." Sign Language Studies 21. 3 (2021): 350-377. Print.
Brentari, Diane, Joseph Hill, and Brianne Amador. "Variation in phrasal rhythm in sign languages: introducing “rhythm ratio.”." Sign Language & Linguistics 21. 1 (2018): 41-76. Print.
Hill, Joseph. "The Importance of the Sociohistorical Context In Sociolinguistics: The Case of Black ASL." Sign Language Studies 18. 1 (2017): 41-57. Print.
Hill, Joseph and Carolyn McCaskill. "Reflections on the Black ASL Project." Sign Language Studies 17. 1 (2016): 59-63. Print.
Published Review
Hill, Joseph. "Do deaf communities actually want sign language gloves?" Rev. of Sign-to-speech translation using machine-learning-assisted stretchable sensor arrays, eds. Stuart Thomas, et al. Nature Electronics 15 Jul. 2020: 512-513. Web.
Hill, Joseph. "Book Review." Rev. of Deaf Culture: Exploring Deaf Communities in the United States, ed. Ceil Lucas. Sign Language Studies 11 Oct. 2017: 162-165. Print.
Creative Non-fiction
Cullinan, Danica, et al. Signing Black in America: A Documentary by the Language & Life Project. Language & Life Project, 2020.
Invited Keynote/Presentation
Hill, Joseph C. "The Past, Present, and Future of Black ASL." Building Connections with ASL Corpora. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 5 Mar. 2020. Lecture.
Hill, Joseph and Corrine Occhino. "Documenting Individual Variation in ASL (DIVA)." Building Connections with ASL Corpora. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 6 Mar. 2020. Conference Presentation.
Hill, Joseph. "Black, Deaf, and Disabled: Navigating the Institutional, Ideological, and Linguistic Barriers with Intersectional Identities in the United States." Linguistics Martin Luther King Junior Colloquium. University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 17 Jan. 2020. Lecture.
Peer Reviewed/Juried Poster Presentation or Conference Paper
Lucas, Ceil, Joseph Hill, and Danica Cullinan. "Signing Black in America: The Story of Black American Sign Language (Film)." Proceedings of the 48th Annual Conference of New Ways of Analyzing Variation. Ed. Tyler Kendall. Eugene, Oregon: n.p..
Hill, Joseph C. and Kelsey Beers. "Language Attitudes and Policies at Mainstream and Deaf Schools in Italy." Proceedings of the High Desert Linguistics Society. Ed. OSF. Albuquerque, New Mexico: OSF.
Lee, Youmee, Andrew Smith, and Joseph Hill. "The Challenge of Preserving Captured Sign Language Data in Human Avatar Models." Proceedings of the Frameless Labs Symposium. Ed. Juilee Decker and David Halbstein. Rochester, New York: n.p..
Full Length Book
Hill, Joseph, Diane Lillo-Martin, and Sandra Wood. Sign Languages: Structures and Contexts. 1st Edition ed. New York, New York: Routledge, 2019. Print.
Published Conference Proceedings
Bayley, Robert and Joseph Hill. "Attitudes Towards Black American Sign Langauge." Proceedings of the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers, New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV 45), Vancouver BC. Ed. Betsy Sneller. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennysylvania, 2017. Web.
Coyne, Dave and Joseph Hill. "Infusing Social Justice into Interpreting Education." Proceedings of the CIT 2016 Conference Proceedings. Ed. Miako Rankin, Mary Thumann, and Risa Shaw. Fremont, CA: Conference of Interpreter Trainers, 2017. Web.

Currently Teaching

LEAD-350
Introduction to Qualitative Research
3 Credits
This course will provide an introduction for students to learn various types of qualitative research in the field of leadership, intersectionality, and accessibility. This course will involve hands-on experiences, developing research questions, interviewing, performing thematic analyses, and identifying vital components of a qualitative research study.
LEAD-351
Introduction to Quantitative Research
3 Credits
This course will introduce students to quantitative methods used within the social sciences to answer research questions. Students will learn how to conduct culturally appropriate research with deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals and Deaf communities and organizations. Students will learn about how to define and measure variables of interest, design surveys and other types of research studies, analyze the data collected, report outcomes, manage data safely, and conduct ethically responsible and culturally authentic research.

In the News

  • January 9, 2023

    person using sign language.

    Preserving Black ASL

    For years, Joseph Hill, assistant dean of NTID Faculty Recruitment and Retention and an associate professor in the Department of ASL and Interpreting Education, has studied how the segregation of southern Black Deaf Americans, along with their history and culture, has impacted the linguistics of today’s Black Deaf youth. Hill hopes his research will continue to uncover and preserve Black American Sign Language.

  • May 28, 2021

    two women wearing face masks looing at a pamphlet in a doctor's office.

    Researchers show deaf community needs greater guidance on COVID-19 management, care

    A team of researchers, led by NTID, has discovered that improved guidance on COVID-19 management and healthcare navigation accessible to the deaf community is needed. The conclusion is based on studies that show a higher portion of deaf respondents reported challenges with accessing, understanding, and trusting COVID-19 information compared to their hearing peers.

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