I think you’re being a little over-optimistic in thinking that recognition of this kind might have a significant impact on perceptions of deafness as a disability.

That said, there is a significant body of supporting evidence, particularly in relation to the evolution of an entirely indigenous form of sign language in Nicaragua over the last 30 year, to support the recognition of BSL as a distinct minority language without the need to rely arguments about disability.

If linguists are happy that meets the criteria for a distinct language then, yes, give it the recognition, and if that then changes a few attitudes along the way, so much the better.

How would a change in the status of the language “forever eliminate the disability” unless by some myseterious metaphysical process it will also restore hearing ?

I’m not sure how it would reduce the disability.

Though Sign Language could be recognised as a language, a deaf person would struggle to learn French and Spanish still, even if more people learnt Sign. They would struggle to work in a number of professions, so, presumably they’d still have a disability.

I’m intrigued by the thought of treating BSL as a language in its own right, but I wonder whether there might be problems of definition here.
The thought here is that sign language is parasitic on “regular” language, isn’t it? For example, when it comes to writing, a deaf person and a hearing person will have indistinguishable output. Both, presumably, think in English, French, or whatever. That is to say: making noises, marks on a page or waving your hands about are all ways of expressing a language, but don’t constitute a language itself. Written and spoken English are not different languages; on this basis, I don’t see why written English and signed whatever-it-is would be different – so the signed version would be English as well. Finally, this seems to indicate that signed and spoken English would have to be the same language as a matter of logic. (If A=B, and B=C, then C must be identical to A)
Nor will it do to say that there are things that can be expressed in one medium that are harder to express in another; again, consider the analogy with speech and writing. Of course speech is capable of an expressivity that’s not possible in writing, and vice versa. This doesn’t make them expressions of different languages. So there may be things that I could express with signs that I couldn’t express easily otherwise… but that doesn’t seem to suffice as a criterion of language.

If you want a better deal for deaf people, this seems not to be the most obvious way to bring it about…

The thought here is that sign language is parasitic on “regular” language, isn’t it?

Not necessarily, hence the importance of the evidence from Nicaragua.

When the country went tits up in the 80′s its deaf community were left without any support infrastructure at all – not even a functional form of sign language.

So, left entirely to their own devices, they spontaneously developed their own sign language, which has been evolving and developing without any outside assistance for the last 20-25 years.

@Unity… I should’ve known I was asking for a rebuttal with that…
OK – so there’s a case for this Nicaraguan version, and for other “isolated” signing systems to count in their own right. The point doesn’t translate to sign language(s) in toto, though.

I’d be interesting to know about how the Nicaraguans dealt with written language, in this light. How did they get to grips with it (and its grammar, which’d presumably be HUGELY different from anything they’d come up with)?

Any Chomskians out there?

British Sign Language (BSL) has already had recognition from the British Government on the 18th of March 2003. However, this gave no legal status and many feel that it still remains just a tokenistic statement.

The disabling factor comes from society, not from Deaf people. If hearing people could sign and had Deaf awareness, there would be no barrier – other than attitude.

BSL is a language in its own right and does not rely on English. There is no written form of BSL, although there is a notation system. So, no, English and BSL are not the same. They are grammatically and syntactically different. BSL is a visual-spatial language whereas English is linear. People who think BSL is English on the hands have not done enough research!

Sign language interpreters in this country work between BSL and English. For other nationalities, other sign language are used, just as French people don’t speak English, French Deaf people don’t sign in BSL!

#3

I can’t speak German, and I don’t have an aptitude for learning languages. If I moved to Germany, would I be disabled?

#4

I don’t think the fact that parts of sign language borrow extensively from English should stop it being classed as a language in its own right. It’s not as if English (and many, many other languages) didn’t borrow from pre-existing languages.

“those who see Sign Language as a language don’t see deafness as a disability”

I don’t see that this follows at all. Sign Language seems like a language to me (though I have no expertise in linguistics or awareness of what the formal definition of ‘language’ is). Deafness also seems like a disability to me, because it prevents deaf people from engaging in a variety of activities (for example listening to music) without (as far as I am aware from my limited experience) conveying any counterbalancing advantages.

I am very aware that my thinking on one or both these issues might be incorrect, or based on my own biased interpretations as an effectively monolingual person who would not normally be categorised as disabled by most people, but I certainly don’t see a necessary contradiction between the two positions.

What Andrew Hickey said. One can easily perceive BSL to be a language AND deafness to be a disability.

Denying that deafness is a disability may well be very laudable from an anti-stigma point of view, but it could backfire. After all, if deafness would was not considered a disability, then that could mean that employers and services might not be expected to make reasonable adjustments under the Disability Discrimination Act for deaf employees and customers.

While I certainly see BSL as a language, I’m not sure I follow the inference in the article that ‘if you believe it’s a language, you should support minority and indigenous language status.’ I similarly believe that Esperanto is a language, but have little desire to see it given such status.

I’m pretty certain that Sign is indeed a language. Own grammar, own vocab, yup, it’s a language.

However “Sign Language should be given the status of an indigenous and minority language”

The point of that is that official documents have to be translated into it if a language speaker should so desire. Given that there isn’t a written form of the language it all seems a bit moot really.

@Karen: Of course English and BSL are not the same. Nor are English and speech, or notation and Mahler’s 9th.

@tim f: No, that’s not quite what I meant by parasitic. What I meant by that is the (perhaps underinformed) idea that something like BSL is designed to do the job of English. Unity’s post made the point that you could have a signing system that was totally independent of any other language, and that addresses the point somewhat. I make no bones about the fact that I’m speaking from a position of ignorance on a lot of this. That’s partly why the questions’re interesting…

@Enzyme: No, that’s not quite what I meant by parasitic. What I meant by that is the (perhaps underinformed) idea that something like BSL is designed to do the job of English.

Only in the sense that French is designed to do the job of English.

Enzyme, you have the quite common but wrong idea that signing is a version of English by other means. But it isn’t. Its vocabulary and grammar are completely different. In fact, in grammatical terms, it is quite unlike any spoken language that I know about.

If BSL is a language, why isn’t Braille?

Because Braille is just English written using different symbols to denote the letters of the alphabet.

Just so I don’t sound like a complete arsehole, I suppose I ought to make clear that I’m fascinated by what you’ve been saying here about signing. Linguistics isn’t my thing at all – it’s interesting to see where my intuitions need examination. In my defence, they’re not all that uncommon, and I think that they’re the sort intuitions that most reasonable people hold without being any the less reasonable…

Does that make sense? Overly defensive?

The point of that is that official documents have to be translated into it if a language speaker should so desire. Given that there isn’t a written form of the language it all seems a bit moot really.

Oh, I dunno – nice bit of symbolism with minimal cost implications… sound like a win-win scenario to me.

[17] And in what sense is that not a description of ESL?

Personally, I’d compare English and BSL to Mandarin and Cantonese. Both use the same written form, which happens to be connected to the spoken form of one – written Chinese relates to spoken Mandarin, though it really connects better to Mandarin as it was spoken in about 600AD than as it is spoken now. Written English is a bit closer to spoken English than written Chinese to Mandarin, but we don’t have a strict phonetic writing system.

BSL is conventionally written in English too, but that doesn’t mean that it is English; in that sense Cantonese is written in Mandarin – and they are definitely *not* the same language.

Matt Munro- hopefully, this would eliminate the perception of deafness as a disability by the hearing world. We can never, unfortunately, eliminate this problem, but if we don’t choose to see it as a problem, it will stop being one.

tim f- You read my mind with your response to point 3. Thank you.

[20] Because BSL doesn’t even attempt to represent the alphabet – it has it’s own morphemes which don’t directly match English words (for instance, English uses a lot of auxiliary words because it doesn’t have a strong modifier system; BSL avoids auxiliary morpheme because it does have a modifier system).

BSL is definitely a language; it was known as such when I was studying language (i.e. linguistics) at uni 30-odd years ago. SSL, Sign Supported English, is what you get if you translate English directly into signs; I think they’re (a subset of) the same signs, but I’m not sure. There are other sign languages used by people who write in English, e.g. ASL/Ameslan in the USA. They’re as different as Dutch and German.

Not being able to hear is an impairment; it becomes a disability because of social factors. I don’t think the set “people who regard Deafness as a linguistic minority and not a disability” is the same as the set “people whose native language is a sign language”. It’s also possible to regard it as both.

Kentron, Esperanto isn’t anyone’s native language (unless someone has brought up their children speaking nothing else, which would be rather unfair of them). BSL is the native language of many Deaf people in this country, and presumably likewise in Scotland, which makes it by definition a minority and indigenous language.

@ 22 With respect, what difference does it make how it’s perceived ? This sounds a little bit like a sapir whorfian debate about labels rather than anything to do with helping deaf people per se. As someone else has said, it’s advantageous in terms of employment law, benefits etc for deafness to be a disability.

“but if we don’t choose to see it as a problem, it will stop being one”.

really, does that apply to everything, or just deafness ??

The history of Nicaraguan sign language is ASTOUNDING: while the state had ignored the education of deaf children most only used a rather primative pidgin form to communicate with the hearing community (largely restricted to their immediate family) but when classes for deaf kids started the children developed a highly complex, syntactically consistant language THEMSELVES in less than a generation: I’ve no doubt that sign language is every bit as valid an expression of an inate human capacity – or even NEED – for language.

On the other hand hearing is not just about communicating: it’s a sense, the absence of which is as regretable as a lack of any other.

Matt Munro- That can appy to anything you like.

“We can never, unfortunately, eliminate this problem, but if we don’t choose to see it as a problem, it will stop being one.”

I don’t really like this view, Sarah. You have to accept certain things as problems, without that you can’t work out solutions. That’s not to say that you should see it as being a negative situation or something that makes you a lesser person, which is what I assume you’re really saying?

Yes, Lee, I do mean a negative situation.

I can see the appeal of the social model of disability, but I am broadly suspicious of attempts to combat discrimination by changing the language we use. (Such as this distinction between deaf and Deaf, and arguing over whether it is a disability)

I’m a bit ticked off that I can’t earn £50,000 per week playing football, but I don’t blame society and language for defining me as somebody who can’t play football at all well. That, ultimately is not the problem.

Isn’t the real problem here one of how people judge each other, and in particular deeming disability to confer a lower status? And isn’t this an example of a more general problem of obsession with and competition for status, involving the use of arbitrary criteria for elevating one group above another? And that this sense of status feeds discrimination.

I don’t see how taking something that is now called a disability and calling it something else will change that at all.

You said it yourself, Joe. It’s about status, and perception. If deafness is no longer seen as a disability because Sign Language is seen as a language, the status of its speakers will be raised from that of disabled people to that of an able bodied, linguistic minority.

[30][31] Exactly. Couple of points. I suspect the driver in all this is people who are born deaf (or Deaf or even DEAF – Differently Empowered Auditory Faculty) rather than those – a considerably greater number, methinks – who have lost their hearing as they grow older – with or without the aid of very loud rock concerts. And the truth is, someone born stone deaf is disabled.

Do they think that a baby born blind and deaf is no worse off than one born “merely” blind? I don’t think so. Can they point to a born-deaf individual who has made it to the top of a team sport? And if not are they seriously suggesting that this is due to discrimination against a “linguistic community”? Are they seriously claiming that if a surgical procedure became available that would restore their hearing they would decline it?

I am reminded of those gay activists in the mid-1980s who demanded that Greenwich Council give LGBTs priority in the award of house improvement grants.

[32] I meant to add, in the second para of the previous post – “Do they wish to see an end to medical research into deafness?”

“Are they seriously claiming that if a surgical procedure became available that would restore their hearing they would decline it?”

There are indeed those who refuse to have cochlear implants. In fact, I think that there was a Deaf couple with a deaf son and they refused the implant for him.

[34] That rings a bell, Tim. (Is there a pun in there? I dunno.)

I suppose my position is that if people refuse implants, I also have a right to refuse to accommodate my behaviour to their choice, e.g. by refusing to regard them as “members of a linguistic community”.

There are also deaf couples who want their children to be born deaf so that they will be part of the deaf community. That, to me, is totally unacceptable but a logical extension of the notion that deafness is not a disability.

I’ve already said I think sign language is every bit a language as the spoken word but hearing is not simply about language,

@ 31 Sara – I’m sorry but that simply isn’t true

A considerable body of reasearch in cognitive and social psychology shows that concepts
i.e “Deafness” , are represented separately from the symbol (in this case the word) which signifies them, the two are double disaccociated. What that means in layments terms is that changing the word has no effect on the concept, or people’s perception of the concept.

Ergo, it doesn’t matter whether it’s classified as a diability or not, or whether sign language is given a different status, people will still carry around the same the same perceptions of deaf people.

It’s about whether or not you see Sign Language as a language.

That’s a rather misleading use of words. “SignLanguage” isn’t a langauge any more than “Spoken Language” is a language. Particular sign languages, such as BSL, *are* languages, in exactly the same sense that particular spoken languages,. such as English, as languages — that is to say they have all the complex features of syntax and vocabulary that linguists recgnise in language.

@30: Isn’t the real problem here one of how people judge each other, and in particular deeming disability to confer a lower status?

People want status, indeed they are genetically programmed to want it — for humans to chase after status is as instinctive as for cats to chase after mice.

“Disabled” by definition means not being able to do things, and status is generally tied in with being able to do things — in your example being able to play football well enough that people will pay you £50k a week to do it.

So there’s probably always going to be some extent to which disabled people will tend to have lower status.

@4; I’m intrigued by the thought of treating BSL as a language in its own right, but I wonder whether there might be problems of definition here. The thought here is that sign language is parasitic on “regular” language, isn’t it?

Not in general. Specifically, BSL isn’t dependent on English, that is to say there isn’t the close one-to-one relationship that you’d expect if they were just different modalities of the same language (the way spoken English and written English *are* different modalities of the same language).

You’re perhaps confusing it with fingerspelling, which is merely a different modality of a written language.

@18: Just so I don’t sound like a complete arsehole, I suppose I ought to make clear that I’m fascinated by what you’ve been saying here about signing. Linguistics isn’t my thing at all – it’s interesting to see where my intuitions need examination.

Wikipedia is your friend

You have to accept certain things as problems, without that you can’t work out solutions. That’s not to say that you should see it as being a negative situation or something that makes you a lesser person, which is what I assume you’re really saying?

This whole thread is claptrap.

Are you suggesting that the loss of my hearing is a “positive situation” for me? It self -evidently makes me less able to do a number of things and entirely incapable of doing some others. In that sense, deafness does make me a lesser person though of course only a fool would account for it in an overall assessment of my human worth..

Calling a visual method of communication a “language” does nothing to improve the situation or indeed how aural impairment is perceived by others.

You have to accept certain things as problems, without that you can’t work out solutions. That’s not to say that you should see it as being a negative situation or something that makes you a lesser person, which is what I assume you’re really saying?

This whole thread is claptrap.

Are you suggesting that the loss of my hearing is a “positive situation” for me? It self -evidently makes me less able to do a number of things and entirely incapable of doing some others. In that sense, deafness does make me a lesser person though of course only a fool would account for it in an overall assessment of my human worth..

Calling a visual method of communication a “language” does nothing to improve the situation or indeed how aural impairment is perceived by others.

I’m not calling for BSL, ASL or NSL for that matter to be called ‘language’ out of any PC consideration for deaf people, I’m saying that they are ‘language’ on the scientific grounds that they are external expressions of an inate fascility to communicate in exactly the way spoken languages are.

Sign languages generate themselves in an absence of spoken communication in the same way that creoles will be generated in the absence of a shared spoken tongue among hearing communities. They are conceptually rich and syntactically consistant; they are not simply an alternative modality of the parent ‘tongue’.

Unless you define ‘language’ entirely in terms of spoken communication I don’t see that you can exclude signed language.

And this is an entirely seperate matter from whether deafness itself is a disability or not.

(And sign language itself is not PC: there are signs for ethnic minorities which be frowned upon if spoken analogues were used, and common visual puns – such as the simple shift between the signs for ‘football’ and ‘disabled’ – which show users distancing themselves from those they feel to be less than themselves.)

Perhaps the problem is just that people who are members of the majority culture cannot abide anyone living their lives differently. Deaf people have social centres, organisations, media, their own communications (which may or may not be a language) and this rather irks hearing people – even ‘liberal’ Guardian reading ones. Not being an apologist for who you are tends to annoy the normals, who like nothing better than to ponitifcate on other people’s lives. For the same reason, English speakers permanently moan about the Welsh language, even trying to subvert the hard won gains that Welsh speakers have achieved; ‘liberal’ men endlessly pick at feminism, and non-Jews are constantly off on one about the influence of Jews, assimilation and separatism. Take a subject and majority culture will be trying to eradicate it. The controversial gay ‘leather’ writer Larry Townsend once commented that the real goal of the gay movement should be to just get heterosexuals to mind their own business and stop the endless ‘debate’ on gay people’s cultures. The same is true here.

@12

Information would not be put into another written format. It would be interpreted into British Sign Language and put onto DVD/Video recording. There are BSL clips on the internet, such as the recently published information regarding Swine Flu – that was put into BSL too.

@25

It’s very much about perception. There is confusion because not everyone knows the difference between deaf and Deaf. One is a group of people who use English to communicate and have a hearing loss, whilst others communicate through their preferred language of BSL. It’s the latter that do not consider themselves to have a disability, but are in fact disabled by societal barriers and attitudes.

@45: “whilst others communicate through their preferred language of BSL”

Is a D/deaf person communicating through sign language really a choice of preference and not necessity?

“Are you suggesting that the loss of my hearing is a “positive situation” for me? It self -evidently makes me less able to do a number of things and entirely incapable of doing some others. In that sense, deafness does make me a lesser person though of course only a fool would account for it in an overall assessment of my human worth..”

Just because it isn’t negative doesn’t mean it’s positive. How much a situation is a negative is down to the individual.

@ 46

It’s a preference – there are choices. Some people communicate through lip-reading with hearing people who have an awareness of communicating with deaf people who use English. Some Deaf people use sign language as a ‘preference’ because that is their linguistic choice and part of who they are culturally. Communicating in a room where everyone signs is more inclusive than one where there is a deaf person who communicates through lip-reading and English. There are many books and articles to read about Deaf culture. When we (hearing and Deaf) all communicate through BSL it is an inclusive environment. This is a different experience to walking into a room with only speech being used.

@ 42

My Deaf friends do not feel they miss out on things. They feel whole. Some say that you can’t miss something you never had. It does seem to make a difference (in terms of feeling positive or negative about things) if a person is born deaf or loses their hearing, if there are others in your family who are deaf, or what language a deaf person uses. It would be interesting to know what it is that you feel you can not do. I know so many positive d/Deaf role-models who work with other people (eg children in schools) demonstrating that d/Deaf people can and do succeed in many areas of life. Choices are indeed limited by society, but that is not the fault of the individual. We should aim for an ‘inclusive’ society, not an ‘integrated’ one.

[48]

We should aim for an ‘inclusive’ society, not an ‘integrated’ one.

Leaving aside the specific question of the deaf (or Deaf or DEAF- see my comment [32] above) why should this be our goal? I can’t speak for the rest of the Conspirators, of course, but I think this would make a very interesting article in its own right.

@49 Agree there’s an interesting article there. I look forward to reading it!

@49

With all due respect, if you need to ask ‘Why?’ would you read any such article with and open mind!?

It is mostly (in my experience) those who do not have any ‘disability’ (or haven’t worked/met people who have a disability) that do not understand why inclusion is a Utopia. However, it is achievable with the right attitudes. With the right attitudes many things are possible.

Disappointly, just today, I went into a place that is commented upon for its brilliance in accepting diversity and inclusion and a person in a wheelchair could use all the facilities in the disabled toilet, except the paper towels that were at standing height!

“Inclusive” of whom, who decides and who pays ?

@ 48

Surely the choice of speech versus sign language is only afforded to those with hearing? I feel like I’m missing something here.

@53

Kentron, this is an interesting debate in itself. Deaf people have spent many hours at school focussing on speech and using their hearing skills that they have (with amplication through hearing aids) or after having Cochlear Implants and using other equipment.

It depends on the level of ‘residual’ hearing and some people may be able to use what they have to learn to speak and use the hearing they have. But they may still rely on lip-reading and may miss out on conversations. If you google deaf awareness and have a look at some of the issues you will get to know more about this area.

Additionally you will read that Deaf BSL users (BSL in Britain – other sign languages in other countries just as there are other spoken languages) choose to communicate through BSL (British Sign Language) and that they belong to a linguistic and cultural minority.

There is plenty of reading material free on the web I don’t claim to be an expert in these areas, but I have some experience and knowledge. However, there are authors out there with vast knowledge and they have done much research. It would be worth having a look at

@Susan Francis: Actually there are quite a few native Esperanto speakers, otherwise known as “denaskuloj”. Somewhere between 1000-2000 by last count, and some of these are even second- or third-generation native speakers, no less.

Esperanto is designed to allow communication between speakers who don’t share a native language, and it works so well that many marriages result in which Esperanto is the only common language spoken in the home. Children growing up in these environments end up speaking three languages natively: Esperanto and the native languages of both parents.

For more info, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers