Deaf perspectives on communicative practices in South Africa: institutional language policies in educational settings

Abstract

This article reports on a study into communicative practices in educational settings by members of the South African Deaf community. The data contain interviews of miscellaneous South African Deaf people who were interviewed through South African Sign Language (SASL) by Deaf SASL users who received a short training on interview simulation. From the narratives a general prevalence of communicative barriers in educational settings emerges. Similar to many other Deaf communities, Deaf identities appear to be shaped by means of alienation from the hearing community and solidarity among the Deaf community (to a certain extent even across ethnic boundaries). The communication barriers lead to different dimensions of power relations. Moreover, certain educational practices extend beyond the school premises and influence family practices. What also emerged from the South African data were issues of stigmatization of signing and complex issues of communication in South Africa's multilingual society. Linguistic ethnography has proven a very productive methodology as it has yielded interesting “counter-narratives” (i.e., narratives from within the Deaf community that give a different picture than the beliefs put forward within a hearing hegemony) by means of which Deaf South Africans get “a voice” in mainstream society.