An introduction to our new partner: Deaf EXperience

Deaf people are in their natural element when they sign, just as hearing people are when they speak. Sign languages are autochthonous, bio-culturally diverse, visio-spatial languages, both linguistically and neurologically. Despite this they are viewed as low status languages, as a tool for access to mainstream services via interpreters and as a form of medical “treatment” to support those who have a profound hearing loss.

Deaf Experience (DEX) is a deaf-led national charity based in Leeds, UK, aiming to support deaf children and young people’s wellbeing, and improve their access to  education.  As a community-facing organisation we work with deaf young people in Yorkshire, most of whom do not belong to the Deaf Community because they attend, or attended, mainstream education. As such they do not, or rarely have, deaf peers in their schools, and mostly do not learn British Sign Language (BSL). DEX does outreach for this hard-to-find group and provides social and learning opportunities for members of the DEX Deaf Youth Council (18 to 30 years) and the Hub (11 to 17 years). We also offer advocacy and employment support, and teach BSL to those who were not provided access to BSL at school.  Our research design and abstracts are based on testimonies of current and past members, literature reviews, and on our own experiences as deaf adults. Each research project leads incrementally on to the next: our most recent studies have been on BSL and other sign languages.

 

Best Value Review

Our first project was our deaf user-led audit of deaf education (2004). Using Best Value principles which were being used by the government at that time, this project was cited as best practice by, world renowned auditors Boyle, Breul and Dahler-Larsen, in “Open to the Public: Evaluation in the Public Arena.” During the course of this research we noticed that the number of deaf children learning BSL was low, which we estimated as only approximately 10% of deaf children.

Sign languages were banned in deaf education at a conference in 1880 due to the supposed negative effect sign languages were considered to have on spoken language acquisition for deaf children.

This ethos continues to modern day, with few parents of deaf children being informed about sign language or offered instruction, or it being used as a teaching medium for their child. This signifies the linguistic imperialism that stems from ignorance of modern research, particularly about bilingualism, and audism in which deaf people are normalised to be as hearing as possible. Approximately 40 countries have implemented sign language legislation, including the UK, but this still falls short of revitalisation since there is no promotion to all parents of deaf children.

 

Towards language planning for sign languages: Measuring endangerment and the treatment of British Sign Language

Our second research study, which took place in 2014, was facilitated by the use of a national survey carried out annually by teaching professionals to ascertain the numbers of deaf children in the UK, education staff and teaching practice, undertaken by the Consortium of Research into Deaf Education (CRIDE). Research showed that only about 9% of the UK’s 51,600 deaf children are learning BSL with English or Welsh spoken languages (CRIDE, 2021). Of this 9% of deaf child BSL users, 7% use a mixture of sign and spoken languages together and so it does not constitute a pure sign language. The plethora of linguistics research since the 1980s—when sign languages were identified as bona fide languages—has focused on corpus, lexicography and interpreting. However, the most obvious factor has been totally missed: the continuity of their ethnolinguistic heritages is endangered as replacement levels fall since throughout the world almost all deaf children are born to hearing parents who do not sign (95%). As most of them have never learnt sign language they are unable to pass it on naturally, as with spoken languages’ intergenerational transmission.

With this in mind we measured the level of endangerment by using Fishman’s Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS), UNESCO’S Language Vitality and Endangerment (LVE, 2003) and Lewis and Simon’s Expanded GIDS (EGIDS). The study analysed the enactment of sign language legislation throughout the world, finding that replacement levels do not rise despite attempts to raise status and promote them, and indeed we found quotes in spoken language endangerment research to say that there is no point in the language being legally recognized (as was later stated in the BSL Act, 2022) unless the issue of intergenerational transmission is addressed first.

Our research found that BSL is severely endangered, and we recommended that it be treated in order to reverse language shift. To do this, immediate intervention is crucial to ensure that all parents of deaf children are universally provided with full and rich information about the manifold benefits of their child learning BSL and English bilingualism. DEX considers that the successful Welsh language revival plan for new parents in Wales to access Welsh-medium education is a transferable model that could be used with parents of deaf children.

From 2014, DEX decided to undertake language endangerment activism in order to work with the Deaf community to protect BSL. This was in addition to promoting BSL and legal recognition which was what the Deaf community was asking for. We approached the All Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness (APPGD) to ask for a BSL Bill with which we aimed to protect and promote BSL. The APPGD requested leadership from DEX to draft a BSL Bill with other deaf organisations. DEX established a working group of deaf organisations and hearing linguists, resulting in the passing of the BSL Act 2022 which stipulates BSL is to be promoted and that it is now a legally recognised language in the United Kingdom. However, the provisions from our research recommending the protection of BSL were not included in the final legislation.

 

Deaf community ownership of endangered sign language revitalisation

To address the sorely missed opportunity to codify protection of BSL, DEX’s third study looked at the discourse that speakers (and in this case, signers too) should be the authors of language transmission despite the findings that speakers do not show much, if any, interest in the revitalisation of their languages. It considered any reasons with regards to minority language communities’ attitudes towards reversing language shift and the concept of defensive culture amongst indigenous endangered language communities. We reviewed our attempts at language endangerment activism to understand why we had been unsuccessful in the use of the legislative system to protect BSL. The BSL Act that was passed was a Private Members’ Bill with budgetary restraints which negatively impacted our proposed initiatives aimed at reversing language shift. To further compound the situation, there is the international concept of the big D/little d[linked video is in American Sign Language], which was originally introduced to encourage deaf people to be proud of being culturally Deaf and providing a Deaf identity and language. However, this has become a form of linguicism by Deaf people against deaf people who do not sign or are not fluent. This division can be between deaf schools’ alumni who claim community ownership of BSL and Deaf culture, and BSL users who attended mainstream schools. Schwartz, 2018 crucially states “The change of language attitude is imperative for the revival of endangered language”. He also quotes Baker (1992) who points out: “It is essential to bring about changes in the negative attitudes of both endangered language community and the dominant language community for slowing down the language endangerment and also for the success of revitalisation policies”. Consequently an Endangered Sign Language community has to be facilitated to save its sign language and to work cohesively, beginning by actively trusting deaf community researchers.  

DEX gave this paper at the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) conference in New Mexico in November 2022:and other contributors and delegates pointed out that defensive culture is a well-known factor for minority language communities under threat.

From networking at the FEL conference we were able to contact UNESCO to bring up the fact that sign languages were not part of its LVE, just in time to be informed by UNESCO that it was due to launch its International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL), and to which DEX was invited, and attended in Paris in December 2022. DEX is registered as a contributor to the IDIL Global Plan and is awaiting how to be involved, particularly as we are the only deaf organisation that has researched this field of linguistics and with regard to sign languages.

During November we were invited to present the two research papers by Professor Janet Watson, Co-Director at the University of Leeds’ CELCE, at the university and via internet. She kindly included the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Endangered Languages with which DEX has also been communicating. One of the participants of the DEX presentation was SIL International, which has been responsible for sign languages’ ethnologues. DEX is currently discussing the implications of our research findings for international sign languages with SIL International.

We are currently considering another secondary research design on the practical revitalisation of BSL, and the most effective way to liaise with international organisations. Obviously, as deaf children continue to struggle in mainstream education and language shift is getting progressively urgent, we do need to continue to take action. We wholeheartedly thank CELCE for allowing DEX to become members and for the part it has played in helping to give DEX the confidence to continue its work as deaf community researchers and language activists.

For further information or to get involved, perhaps in partnership, please do contact us: jilljones@dex.org.uk