Foreword

Abstract

Foreword Josep Quer and Ronice M. de Quadros The recognition of sign languages in national and international legal frameworks has in many cases placed their subsequent language planning on policy makers' agendas. While sign language issues have traditionally and almost exclusively been addressed in the context of Deaf education and accessibility in a first phase, the empowerment of Deaf communities has led to a modified perspective, one in which sign languages are seen as minority languages and their users fight to protect their linguistic rights in all spheres of public life. This move becomes especially interesting when language policies are deployed for other (spoken) minority languages or when no tradition exists for language planning. Since the experiences in this domain are rather diverse, it seems appropriate to take stock of them now in order to reflect on both their positive results and their shortcomings. With these goals in mind, we invited a number of scholars to offer an overview of language policies and planning in their respective countries. The selection of case studies is obviously not exhaustive, but we believe it is representative of the processes that sign languages and their communities are currently undergoing in industrialized and emerging areas. South America is represented by Brazil and Uruguay, and North America, by Quebec (a province in Canada) and the United States. Five rather diverse processes are described for Europe, namely, for Catalonia, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Specific aspects of corpus, status, and acquisition planning are discussed for each case, and their comparison and analysis can be instructive for the design and implementation of policies for sign languages and minority-language planning in the broad sense. In general, the consequences of such policies have been positive, but they have also been less far reaching and effective than expected. Legal achievements do not always have the desired impact on signers' everyday lives. We would like to thank the contributors to this special issue for their effort in putting together an overview of the sign language [End Page 465] planning experience in a specific region and in offering some reflections on it. With this collection of articles, we hope to further raise awareness of the constant threats to sign language maintenance and to the users' rights even when sign language policies are being implemented. [End Page 466] Josep Quer ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain josep.quer@upf.edu Ronice M. de Quadros Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Florianópolis, Brazil ronice@cce.ufsc.br Copyright © 2012 Gallaudet University