Antw: The Amsterdam Manifest

[Franz Dotter]

Dear colleagues,

I agree with the Amsterdam manifesto completely, except one point: the proposal for lingua franca sign languages. Let me explain my view in short:

1. Participation of deaf scientists/linguists in linguistic discussion:

The situation seems for me to be like that of some spoken languages: Lingusitics gains its own life, almost never responding to the vital interests of the speakers' (signers') community: The hearing scientists have to look for their academic career at first. Therefore they deliver much work that is irrelevant for practice. Additionally, some of the linguistic theories applied to sign languages do not seem very adequate and to produce theoretical problems only for the theorie's sake. The deaf linguists mostly have to 'hunt' for these disputes. This is not a sound situation.

2. ASL and BSL as linguae francae

For years I have opposed the proposals of many hearing subjects (politicians, educators) whose favourite demand was: Let us unify the sign languages or construct a new single one for all deaf persons to make things easier. It is linguistic imperialism which we can find elsewhere with many small spoken languages also. As linguists, we are forbidden to make such proposals, I think.
My opinion is that only the deaf communities can decide about such things. I do not feel that the manifesto can tell us that it comes from this source.
This is a very silly point in the manifesto because it strenghtens the silly standpoints of uninformed politicians etc. Take the situation of a Non-English-speajking deaf person: (S)he has to learn the home sign language, some of International Sign, then one/the national spoken/written languages and English as the written lingua franca. And now ASL or BSL or both at best? It is not earnest, I think; and especially it is again being guardian to most of the deaf.

Best Regards

Franz Dotter

University of Klagenfurt
Research Center for Sign Language and Communication of the Hearing Impaired
(of the Faculty for Cultural Sciences at the Department of Linguistics and Computational Linguistics)
Funded by: Bundessozialamt Kaernten, European Social Fund
Head: Franz Dotter
Collaborators: Elisabeth Bergmeister (deaf), Marlene Hilzensauer, Klaudia Krammer, Ingeborg Okorn (deaf), Reinhold Orter (deaf), Andrea Skant, Natialie Unterberger (hard of hearing).
Homepage: http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/fzgs
Deaf server (in German): http://deaf.uni-klu.ac.at