[lg policy] US: Colleges See 16% Increase in Study of Sign Language

[Harold Schiffman]

Colleges See 16% Increase in Study of Sign Language

By TAMAR LEWIN

While the number of college students studying Spanish, French and
German increased only modestly from 2006 to 2009, enrollment in
American Sign Language — the fourth most-popular language — surged
more than 16 percent, according to a new report from the Modern
Language Association.  Sign-language professors suggested various
reasons for the rise. They said it reflected the growing acceptance of
American Sign Language to meet college foreign-language requirements,
and its usefulness as an employment credential — not only for
interpreters, but also for cognitive psychologists, educators, nurses
and even scuba divers.

With the deep budget cuts of the recession, some universities have cut
back their language programs. Even so, enrollment in foreign-language
classes grew 6.6 percent from 2006 to 2009 — compared with 12.9
percent from 2002 to 2006 — according to the report, “Enrollments in
Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher
Education, Fall 2009.”

“This is a vulnerable time for language study,” said Rosemary Feal,
executive director of the Modern Language Association. “But student
interest remains strong.”

Foreign-language enrollment in 2009 was 1,682,627, an all-time high.
But language courses accounted for 8.6 percent of college classes, the
same as in 2006. In 1965, the percentage was 16.5.

And while undergraduate language study increased, especially at
two-year institutions, graduate-school foreign-language enrollment
declined 6.7 percent from 2006 to 2009.

As in past years, Spanish accounted for more than half of all
foreign-language study.

A few languages with clear geopolitical importance had larger
increases than American Sign Language: Arabic, the fastest growing,
was up 46 percent, Korean 19 percent and Chinese 18 percent.

After long debate about whether American Sign Language is a real
language — and whether it qualifies as a foreign language — a few
universities now offer a major or minor in it, and many more accept
sign language for their foreign-language requirement.

More than 90,000 students enrolled in sign-language classes last year,
compared with only 4,304 in 1995.

Many colleges have long waiting lists of students trying to get into
introductory A.S.L. classes, a substantial share of them turning to
sign language because of their previous difficulties learning European
languages.

“Some students take it because when they took Spanish or French in
high school, it was horrific and they think this will be better,” said
Amy Ruth McGraw, who teaches at the University of Iowa, where about
200 students study sign language. “And if their problem was auditory,
or the accent, this might be better. But if it was memorizing
vocabulary and grammar, this isn’t going to be any better.”

According to the Modern Language Association, only about half the
nation’s colleges now include foreign-language study as a requirement
for graduation, down from about two-thirds 15 years ago.

At the University of Rochester, where the language requirement has
been dropped, sign-language enrollment has remained strong.

“A.S.L. is our second-largest language,” said Ted Supalla, director of
Rochester’s A.S.L. program. “It gets almost 10 percent of our
undergraduates, almost equal to Spanish.”

It does not hurt that, in a time of high unemployment, the job market
for sign-language interpreters is strong.

“The demand for nationally certified A.S.L. interpreters is huge, and
as a freelance interpreter, you can make $40 to $60 an hour,” said
Dennis Cokely, director of the A.S.L. program at Northeastern
University.

Many students say their interest in sign language is more about the
allure of communicating without spoken words.

“My generation has grown up seeing American Sign Language in
television shows and movies, and it just looks so cool,” said Anne
Dunn, a junior at the University of Vermont. “I started because we
have a language requirement here. But sign language is so visual, so
exciting, that I got hooked and kept going.”

Ms. Dunn said she and others were trying to persuade the university to
let them minor in American Sign Language.

Many students take aesthetic pleasure in sign language. Emily Brown, a
sign-language student at Wesleyan University, talks excitedly about
watching deaf poetry on YouTube, and “rhyming” words like “stars” and
“socks,” whose signs share a hand shape and motion.

“I imagine myself painting pictures in the air,” said Ms. Brown, a
junior majoring in English, and serving as an A.S.L. teaching
assistant. “It feels more poetic than other languages. It’s such a
great way to express things you can’t quite express verbally.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/education/08language.html?_r=1&ref=education&pagewanted=print

see graphic:  http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/12/08/us/08language-graphic.html?ref=education




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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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