Language policies, language rights, and sign languages: A critique of disability-based approaches

Abstract

ABSTRACTAmong the focus of language policies addressing sign languages have been efforts to achieve official recognition for various national sign languages, coupled with the recognition of the language rights of d/Deaf people. The recognition of sign languages has most often taken place as a result of lobbying efforts by national Deaf communities, generally with the support of sympathetic hearing supporters. As a rule, efforts to grant official recognition to sign languages are seen as progressive undertakings, but such recognition is almost always grounded both ideologically and epistemologically in misguided views of d/Deaf people. The author provides a distinction between different kinds of language policies concerned with sign languages and suggests that policies granting official recognition to sign languages are fundamentally different in nature from language policies granting such status to spoken languages. The author argues that this difference is due to fundamentally indefensible assumptions about the legitimacy of sign languages as full and complete human languages. Finally, the implications for the language rights of sign language peoples that emerge from this unique nature of language policies for sign languages will be explored.