Theoretical Considerations of Sign Language and Deaf Education

The Claremont Deaf Program is unique particularly in Australia as its approach is integratory instead of one of segregation. The Claremont philosophy is careful to clarify that an integratory approach is not an attempt to normalise but rather offer Deaf students the same opportunities and choices available to their hearing peers. Their "bilingual-bicultural" approach functions so that Deaf students communicate in AUSLAN , and are taught written English as a second language.

I aim to explore some theoretical perspectives that offer a semiotic consideration of Sign Languages. Such considerations are relevant in that they not only discuss bilingual-bicultural educational approaches, they also shed light on why such an approach is effective.

When one thinks of Sign Language there is an immediate association made with gesture. The human use of gesture referred to as 'kinesics' (Stokoe,1972,p.13) reinforces what a speaker is saying to add meaning to their utterance, it can actually deny or discredit the message in the words, but is never independant of language, if only because its use can be asked about and explained in language. The use of gesture is not the same as Sign Language, they can be differentiated by syntax, signs in Sign Language mean what they mean by virtue of relation to other signs.

Oliver Sacks (Sacks,1990,p.87)describes how the Deaf employ prominently visual thought patterns, and the different way in which they think about physical objects. Grammar can exist in purely visual form, it does in Sign Language. However Sign Language is unique in its linguistic use of space, what occurs linearly, sequentially, temporally in speech, becomes concurrent, multi-levelled and simultaneous in Sign.

If this is considered then in regard to Deaf Education, the Deaf have been traditionally accessing a system that does not speak their language. Those who are Deaf ( especially those born deaf or deafened in infancy) have as their primary semiotic system a language that uses as its prime symbols visible action. The Deaf show no disposition to speak, it cannot occur naturally by exposure to a speaking environment, they do however show a disposition to sign which as a visual language is accessible to them. It makes sense to offer students that have Sign Language as their first language, a bilingual-bicultural approach, enabling them to access education in their first language and then be taught written English as a second language.

There are alternative approaches to Deaf Education, for example the development of Signed English systems, such as Manual English. This is problematic for a number of reasons. Very simply it seems needless to create artifical Sign Systems when naturally occurring systems exist already. From a perspective whereby one is relating language to thought, the Deaf would be learning Signs not for the ideas and actions they want to express, but for phonetic sounds they cannot hear.

Further at Claremont a majority of the students who are not deaf can communicate in AUSLAN as well as English. So not only are Deaf students being offered education through interpreters, they can also communicate with their hearing peers. It is not just then an educational tool, but an environment in which all members can communiate without the mediation of interpreters. Sacks (Sacks) offers a compelling illustration of one such environment which developed on Martha's Vineyard for two hundred and fifty years, a recessive gene was brought out by inbreeding. Consequently the entire community learned how to Sign. There was complete and free intercourse between the Deaf and the Hearing. He writes about an elderly woman he watched fall into a reverie, her hands moved constantly, her daughter informed Sacks she was thinking in Sign. Sign Language is an adaptation to another sensory mode, but it is also and equally for the Deaf an embodiment of thir personal and cultural identity, the way in which they construct their reality.

Theoretically therefore a bilingual-bicultural approach is advantageous. Deaf students are no longer being judged by their proficiency in writing, reading and speaking the language of their judges. Moreover they are offered English as a second language so that they can access the hearing worlds that has English (or the spoken language of that country) as thier first language. It is a compromise that offers interesting possibilities that can be considered from the development of communities suach as Martha's Vineyard, and the enviroment at Claremont where a good number of hearing students are proficient in AUSLAN. If such an approach was more widely taken up, then the instance of bilingual-bicultural communities could increase. Deaf students could not only be offered the same opportunities as the speaking majority, but their could be a more open exchange of ideas regarding Deaf Language and culture between the Deaf Community and the Wider Community.