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

- 267 SIGN LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM By Arnfinn Muruvik Vonen Introduction The purpose of this article is to explore the application of the idea of linguistic imperialism (Phillipson 1992) to sign languages. After a brief discussion of deafness as a disability and Deaf communities as cultural-linguistic minorities, and some background information about sign languages, I will first discuss the relationships between the sign languages of the former colonial powers and that the sign languages of the former colonies. Then I will proceed to look at the relationships between spoken languages and sign languages as yet another instantiation of linguistic imperialism. Looking at Deaf Communities in Two Very Different Ways There are at least two very different ways of looking at deaf/Deaf people: as (groups of) disabled people, comparable to blind people; and t as linguistic-cultural communities comparable to other indigenous and migrant t minority communities found throughout the world. These two perspectives (or constructions) oppose each other in a deep sense. In the disability perspective, deafness is seen as a deficit, a challenge and a problem to be overcome. In the linguistic-cultural perspective, according to which there is sensory difference rather than deficit, being Deaf (often spelt with a capital D, following the English-language convention for referring to cultural groups) is seen as a resource, and sign language is, for many, the clearest manifestation of this resource. Historically, the disability perspective has been the stronger perspective in the sense that it has dominated books, curricula and so on. At the same time, it is clearly an outsider’s perspective on the community, based on the hearing person’s recognition of the deaf person’s lack of hearing. As societies change their general concept of disability from a medical to a social perspective, attention is paid not only to individual remedies for the lack of hearing (e.g. providing hearing aids), but also to interventions to reduce the social necessity of hearing (e.g. making public information accessible through sign language). The linguistic-cultural perspective, on the other hand, is more of an insider’s perspective, since the sense of belonging to the Deaf community is hard to observe and appreciate for someone who has not experienced it. - 268 In real life, developing an individual Deaf identity (“Deaf in my own way”, cf. Ohna 2004; a Deaf identity “in the making”, cf. Breivik 2005) may involve finding a viable compromise between the perspectives. Branson and Miller (2002) offer a thorough, critical historical analysis of the disability of deaf people as a cultural construction. In this article, which deals with sign languages more than with the sense of hearing, it is mainly the linguistic-cultural perspective on the Deaf community that is relevant. Sign Languages Based on work starting with the American linguist William C. Stokoe’s groundbreaking study, half a century ago, of the structure of what is now known as American Sign Language (Stokoe 1960), linguists now generally agree that sign languages are full-fledged languages in every important sense. The only fundamental difference between sign languages and spoken languages is in the physical channel (also known as “mode” or “modality”) – sign languages are “visual-gestural” rather than “auditory-vocal” languages. Many sign languages have been influenced in parts of their vocabularies and structures by the spoken languages which surround them, but they have not evolved historically from spoken languages. Rather, they have evolved out of whatever visually accessible forms of communication were available in a community where deaf children were first brought together to grow up in each other’s company. All known sign languages that function as young children’s first language are connected to a community of language users with a hearing impairment, although Deaf people’s hearing family members (including their own hearing children) and friends, and professionals working with the Deaf community, may also be more or less proficient in the language. Like most other linguistic minorities, sign language communities are bi- or multilingual in their sign language and the spoken and, possibly, written language(s) of the surrounding greater society. The limited access to the majority language(s) caused by the hearing impairment distinguishes Deaf people’s bimodal bilingualism from other kinds of bilingualism. Normally or partially hearing children growing up with a sign language usually acquire the local spoken language(s) simultaneously. The extent to which hearing children of signing Deaf parents become fluent signers, depends on the attitudes...

Share