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

Flemish Sign Language: Some Risks of Codification Mieke Van Herreweghe and Myriam Vermeerbergen Flemish Sign Language (Vlaamse Gebarentaal, or VGT) has only recently developed from a language that existed mostly ‘‘underground’’ in the Deaf community to one with a more general role in mainstream (hearing) society. This broader use of VGT has resulted in, among other things, a rising demand for opportunities to learn the language (e.g., by relatives of deaf children and adults, sign-language interpreter students, professionals in deaf education). Many people are also calling for the implementation of VGT as the language of instruction in deaf education in bilingual-bicultural settings (at the moment, this is still restricted to one school) for status-planning activities. However, to be able to teach Flemish Sign Language and use it as a language of instruction, teachers require many educational materials, such as dictionaries and grammar books. This means that there is also a need for ‘‘corpus-planning activities ’’ (Fishman 1974, 9): The language needs to be codified, and the results of that codification need to be elaborated upon and disseminated. In the last two decades there has been a limited attempt at corpus planning of VGT in terms of the codification of the lexicon and the grammar. FLEMISH SIGN LANGUAGE PLANNING: CODIFICATION The ‘‘Unified’’ Sign Lexicon of the ‘‘Signed Dutch’’ System Flemish Sign Language is used by signers from the Flemish (i.e., northern ) part of Belgium. VGT consists of five regional varieties that have developed in and around the different Flemish deaf schools: West-Vlaanderen (West Flanders), Oost-Vlaanderen (East Flanders), Antwerpen (Antwerp), Vlaams-Brabant (Flemish Brabant), and Limburg (Limburg) (De Weerdt et al. 2003; cf. Vanhecke and De Weerdt [this volume] for a geographical map of Flanders and its regions). 111 In addition to the differences between the regions, there is intraregional variation. One example is gender-related variation. Because regional varieties developed and are transmitted in the deaf schools, the fact that boys and girls went to separate schools until the 1970s has given rise to gender variation: Some of the signs in general use today were originally boys’ or girls’ signs. There are of course additional reasons for the relatively high degree of intraregional variation, but they are beyond the scope of this chapter. At the end of the 1970s, the Flemish Deaf community decided to promote the use of signs in Flanders as well. At this time international recognition of sign languages was growing, as was an interest in manual communication in Flemish deaf education. Moreover, in 1979 one deaf school decided to adopt the Total Communication approach (the others were still strictly oral). However, rather than using VGT, the school implemented a system called ‘‘Nederlands met Gebaren,’’ or ‘‘Signed Dutch’’ (i.e., a system for representing spoken Dutch by means of signs). This system employed a one-word-to-one-sign mapping scheme and had signs for fourteen morphological markers (e.g., a diminutive marker, a past-tense marker) (Buyens 1987). Perhaps the main reason that deaf and hearing people at the time decided to promote Signed Dutch was their supposition that a communication system with a ‘‘unified’’ lexicon and a ‘‘good’’ grammar (i.e., a grammar of a spoken language, Dutch, in this case) would meet with less resistance in the hearing community (including those hearing professionals who worked in deaf education). They believed that a sign language consisting of at least five varieties and a ‘‘primitive,’’ unanalyzed, and undescribed grammar would most likely be frowned upon. Moreover, many deaf people considered their language (VGT) ‘‘poor’’ and thought it better to promote a system that made use of the grammar of a ‘‘rich’’ language (Dutch): The Flemish deaf state that a pure sign language is less acceptable for a high-level variety, because they think the grammatical rules of the spoken language should be respected. It is clear that this attitude must be understood as a compromise in a country with a strong oral tradition . In Flanders it still appears to be unacceptable to argue for a pure sign language. It seems that this is the real reason why the deaf propose a kind of Signed Dutch, presumably hoping that this will be more easily accepted among educationalists. But implicitly, the inferiority of pure sign languages seems to be assumed. (Loncke 1983, 161) 112 : m i ek e van h e rr e w eg h e an d m yr i a m v e r...

Share