Sign Language Planning in the Netherlands between 1980 and 2010

Abstract

In this article several aspects of language planning with respect to the Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) are discussed. For nearly thirty years now we have been working with several organizations and members of the Deaf community to improve the position of Deaf people, change the status of their language, and implement a sign language policy that has had implications in several areas. First, a brief background of the situation in the Netherlands with respect to deaf education and the status of NGT is given. Then four main periods are briefly discussed: the oral period (1915–1980) the Total Communication period (1980–1995) the bilingual period (1995–2004) the monolingual/bimodal period (2004–present) Subsequently, the role of sign language research is described. Bernard Tervoort's (1953) research had a major influence on the Deaf community and inspired the first linguistic research on NGT. Three major projects have influenced the linguistic status of NGT and the emancipation of the Deaf community in the past years: the KOMVA project (1982–1990), the STABOL project (Standardization of Basic and Educational Lexicon project, 1999–2002), and the NGT corpus project (2008). The KOMVA project yielded information about regional lexical differences and indicated that no grammatical differences existed in the five regions studied. Between 1982 and 1999 the language policy led to the production of dictionaries and educational materials such as sign language courses that reflected regional variation. In 1999 the language policy changed: Hearing parents and teachers of deaf children exerted strong pressure to standardize part of the NGT lexicon. In addition, the Dutch government mandated the standardization of NGT as a prerequisite for its legal recognition: Thus, the STABOL project was born. The NGT corpus (2008) project provides researchers and teachers with valuable data (mostly annotated) on spontaneous language from signers in different regions of the Netherlands. A major impetus in the changes with respect to the attitude toward signing comes from work done by the Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child (NSDSK) between 1979 and 1999. Hearing parents of deaf children forced changes in early deaf education, and they are again playing a role in current changes in deaf education. Organizations such as de FODOK and Dovenschap act as advocates of the parents of young deaf children and the Deaf community and have played crucial roles with regard to the situation of deaf people and their language in the Netherlands. The milestones in sign language planning and the pursuit of official recognition of NGT are briefly described, as is the role of NGT in relation to deaf education and the influence of CI on the Deaf community.