Browsing by Author "Glaser, Meryl"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Inclusive education for deaf students: literacy practices and South African sign language
    (Taylor & Francis, 2012) Glaser, Meryl; Van Pletzen, Ermien
    This article considers the feasibility of inclusive education for Deaf students in a mainstream Further Education and Training (FET) classroom through the use of a South African Sign Language interpreter. It revisits the centrality of language in Deaf students' education and reports on progressive policy changes in the areas of language, education and disability in South Africa. The article surveys classroom discourse and literacy practices in a mainstream FET classroom, focusing particularly on students' acquisition of text literacy skills in Business English. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from the New Literacy Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis and the Social Model of Disability, the article argues that there is definitely potential for establishing inclusive education for Deaf students in a mainstream classroom. It however highlights that there are many difficulties and challenges around providing fully inclusive education for Deaf students. It was found that the signed interpretations in this classroom frequently represent an impoverished form of language while some types of pedagogic practice impede the interpreter's signing. The article concludes that interpreters and teachers need to be trained in forms of language and pedagogy that would benefit all students in class, including Deaf students.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    Piercing the corporate veil: a review of the concept and consideration of its relevance in South African tax law
    (1994) Glaser, Meryl
    The main objective of this research is to ascertain the degree to which the concept of the corporate veil is relevant in South African Tax Law. The first part of the paper is introductory in nature and is devoted to reviewing the concept from a company law perspective. Part I thus focuses on the following areas: 0 limited liability - rationale for; history and development, and implications 0 disregarding the company's separate personality · 0 literature survey pertaining to the United Kingdom, Australia, United States and South Africa. In concluding part I, it is submitted that the dicta of Lord Halsbury in the Salomon case has stood the test of time and still represents the law today. Part II deals with the application of the concept in South African and selected overseas tax cases. It has been found most relevant in relation to the determination of a company's intention and in tax avoidance cases. In addition, part II focuses on specific aspects of gross income and deductible expenditure, as well as some related topics. In many instances, the corporate veil concept is linked to the debate of substance versus form. Over time, it seems that "substance" has gained ground at the expense of "form", particularly in tax avoidance scenarios. In conclusion, it is submitted that the concept is relevant in the tax law context and needs to be considered by tax practitioners dealing with both large and small companies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Towards communication and information access for deaf people
    (South African Computer Society, 2014) Blake, Edwin; Tucker, William; Glaser, Meryl
    In tightly circumscribed communication situations an interactive system resident on a mobile device can assist Deaf people with their communication and information needs. The Deaf users considered here use South African Sign Language and information is conveyed by a collection of pre-recorded video clips and images. The system was developed according to our method of community-based co-design. We present several stages of the development as a series of case studies and highlight our experience. The first stage involved ethnographically inspired methods such as cultural probes. In the next stage we co-designed a medical consultation system that was ultimately dropped for technical reasons. A smaller system was developed for pharmaceutical dispensing and successfully implemented and tested. It now awaits deployment in an actual pharmacy. We also developed a preliminary authoring tool to tackle the problem of content generation for interactive computer literacy training. We are also working on another medical health information tool. We intend that a generic authoring tool be able to generate mobile applications for all of these scenarios. These mobile applications bridge communication gaps for Deaf people via accessible and affordable assistive technology.