The right to be heard: Citizenship and language

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we address the importance and contestation of language in terms of citizenship and the development of political communities by focusing on the example of a minority language – British Sign Language. Language is crucial to debates about citizenship and belonging because the State has to rely on language for its very functioning, indeed political practice itself is a form of communicative action. For individuals language is deeply implicated in their ability to claim and maintain their rights and in their affective connections with others and sense of identification. The paper therefore begins by identifying that Deaf people's legal entitlements (e.g. to vote) are an abstract form of citizenship because as sign language users they have difficulties understanding both political and wider civil institutions and practices, and so lack the cultural proficiencies necessary to exercise citizenship in a substantive sense. We then go onto consider citizenship in the broader sense of how groups are included or situated in the public sphere, and in doing so to consider the extent to which Deaf people might be understood to have a liveable place in an oral society. The final section examines how the sense of injustice which flows from Deaf people's experiences of marginalisation in the public realm means that they are developing alternative forms of political commitment predicated on non-state spaces of belonging – where they can live their language – at both local and transnational scales. The paper concludes by reflecting on the notion of differentiated citizenship and the implications of Deaf people's claims to language rights.