In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

An overvlew if;curr;entsfen La~uqqeyr;oJects tn swtczeilarui~ PENNY BOYES BRAEM efore I begin to describe current sign language projects in Switzerland, I think it is important to make two points about Switzerland in general. The first point, which is obvious but has important consequences, is that Switzerland is a very small country. In terms of land, Switzerland is approximately the size of Vermont and New Hampshire together. The total population of all of Switzerland is about half that of New York City. The second pOint to keep in mind is that, in some regards, there is no "Switzerland ." The daily life and influential institutions of the natives are not Swiss but rather Swiss German or Swiss French or Swiss Italian or Swiss Romansch. The natives live separated in different regions, each of which has its own cantons-or states-its own language and culture, and surprisingly little contact with other regions. The federal form of government encourages and maintains these subdivisions. What is called states rights in the United States is carried to an extreme in Switzerland. Except for national roads, trains, the post, and the army, almost everything in Switzerland is organized by the twentysix separate cantons. There is thus no Federal Bureau of Education , no central agency responsible for Swiss culture. Even the federal tax doesn't amount to much-the cantonal tax makes up for it! As for international relations, Switzerland prides itself on being neutral. Although there are extensive international contacts through banks and large companies, Switzerland belongs neither to the United Nations nor to the European Community. Deaf Populations of Switzerland Let's look now at the situation of the deaf population in this small, subdivided country. The following figures are only estimates, because there are no official statistics on people with disabilities for the whole of Switzerland. There are a total of 7,800 deaf people in Switzerland. This figure presumably does not include those deafened in old age, but one doesn't know for sure. Of these 7,800 deaf people, 6,000 live in the German part, 1,500 in the French part, and 300 in the Italian part. The deaf people living in each of these areas learn different spoken languages at school-German, French, and Italian.They also have different sign languages. The sign language in the French part, for example, more closely resembles the sign language of France than it does the sign language of German Switzerland.The sign language of Ger- An Overview of Current Sign Language Projects in Switzerland man Switzerland more closely resembles that of Southern Germany than it does that of French or Italian Switzerland. The situation is even more complicated. Within each sign language area, there are sign language dialects. The sign dialect of Geneva, for example, is different from that of Neuchatel; the signs of Zurich are different from those of Bern. The dialects, not unexpectedly, seem to be based on regional schools for deaf students. There is no uniform Swiss German sign language corresponding to the fairly standardized American Sign Language. One of the reasons for this is that in Switzerland we don't have anything equivalent to a central university for deaf students, such as Gallaudet University in the United States, that could function as a standardizing influence on sign language. Consequences of the Situation for Sign Language Projects What are the consequences of the situation described above for sign language projects? What are the problems facing new interpreter training programs, sign language courses, and research projects in this very small country further divided into almost autonomous language areas, with a small deaf population that is scattered throughout these regions and that has different spoken and different sign languages and dialects? One of the first problems is that usually there are not enough deaf people living in anyone canton to justify the financial outlay necessary to run such projects. Projects therefore must be developed for an entire region-for all of the cantons in German Switzerland or those of French Switzerland. Financing for such projects must then involve separate arrangements with several cantonal governments, or the projects must apply to one of the very few federal agencies, such as the agency for insurance for handicapped people. Because of the regional nature of sign language projects, many of the people involved in the project-both hearing and deaf-must travel to a different canton where the project is taking place. This geographical problem means, in turn, that sign language...

Share