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The article discusses the background, scope and likely impact of the third official language in New Zealand - the New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL), which was established in April 2006. The Deaf community has struggled to exercise their citizenship and fought for and managed to succeed in making NZSL as an official language.

Abstract
Barriers to acquiring and using a shared sign language alienate deaf children and adults from their fundamental human rights to communication, education, social and economic participation, and access to services. International data collected by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) identify that in economically developing countries, deaf individuals are at particularly high risk of marginalization, which applies to countries in the Pacific region. This report provides a snapshot of the status of deaf people as sign language users in six Pacific nations: Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste and Kiribati. Information was contributed by sign language interpreters from these countries during a panel convened at the first Oceania regional conference of the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters, in Fiji, 2018. The report outlines conditions for education through sign language and the emergence of sign language interpreting as a means of increasing access and social equity for deaf people in these countries, albeit this remains largely on a voluntary basis. While Fiji and PNG governments have recognized the status of sign languages in their respective countries and allocated some resources to the inclusion of sign language users, practical support of deaf sign language users tends to be progressed on grounds of disability rights rather than language rights; e.g., several Pacific countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights for People with Disabilities, which includes provisions for sign language users, and deaf advocacy efforts have gained political traction from alliance with disability organizations.

This international collection of research from the field of signed language teaching fills a gap in the applied linguistics literature. While signed language teaching has rapidly established an accepted place in the academic domain of second language teaching, pedagogy has widely been shaped by conventional practices, available teaching curricula, and findings from descriptive linguistic research. In general, developments in curricula, teaching approaches, and assessment have been relatively unmediated by applied, empirical research on learning and teaching. "Teaching and Learning Signed Languages" contributes to expanding an emerging research literature on contemporary practices and issues in the teaching and learning of signed languages. 11 chapters by authors in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America address the following themes: Training of signed language teachers Contexts for signed language teaching and learning Application of digital tools at the research-teaching nexus Learner perspectives Effects of first and second languages and modality in signed language instruction Formative assessment

Over the last forty years, there has been considerable international work on country names, their exonyms and their standardization. This work has been based on official written names. In contrast, this paper examines several issues relating to nonwritten country names within Deaf communities. First, the various systems used to form country names within signed languages are outlined. These can include "descriptive" semantic etymology based on behavioural traits of individuals from the countries, elements transferred from the spoken or written form of a name, via mouthing, finger spelling (using a manual alphabet), and loan translation of all or part of the name. Second, four issues in regard to country name signs are commented on, namely (a) the relationship between official languages and signed languages, (b) generational differences in the use of specific country names, (c) the influence of political correctness on country names, and (d) the work of the World Federation of the Deaf on country names, specifically the publication of Gestuno in 1975 and the consequential development of International Sign Pidgin. The final matter to be treated is exonyms and their standardization in signed rather than written languages.