The Amsterdam Manifest

[Onno Crasborn]

Dear Christian and others,

I have a couple of comments on the Amsterdam Manifesto.

1) I think it's a very good initiative!

2) It seems to me that the requirement to have a Deaf researcher on
the conference committee is often a problem; there is none in many
countries (e.g. the Netherlands). A conference can help to stimulate
hearing researchers to train Deaf people more thoroughly, and
stimulate Deaf people to have an interest in linguistics.

To prevent misunderstandings: there _was_ a Deaf person on the Main
Committee for TISLR7, and in addition one of interpreting
coordinators was Deaf.

3) Regarding the conference languages: I can't say if ASL/BSL are
really understood by many foreign researchers (like I said, there are
none in the Netherlands). However, I would like to question the
proposal to select _two_. Why not just one, similar to the choice for
spoken English at most conferences in linguistics?

Choosing for two sign languages may lead to endless discussion over
why those two, and if two, why not three? Or four?

Moreover, the cost aspect is definitively very important for most
conferences; in fact, budget restrictions were the reason why the
organizers of TISLR7 were forced to decide to only provide English
<--> SLN interpreting.

4) In my view, it would be a good idea if one of the main tasks of
the new organization (SLLS: Sign Language Linguistics Society) would
be to try to get more Deaf people involved in linguistics. With some
wishful thinking, it seems to be implicit in the proposed statutes as
they are now that it is important that the users of sign languages
are involved in the research process, but why not make it a more
important and highlighted goal of the society?

A quote from the draft statutes as they were distributed at TISLR7:
"Article 3:
1. The Sign Language Society (SLS) has as its main aim the promotion
of sing language research on an international scale and the
maintenance of high scientific and ethical standards of such
research. It will act as a resource to researchers and provide
support to researchers in countries where such research is just
beginning.
2. The society will encourage exchange of information through
meetings and publications."
(This is all that is subsumed under the heading "aims".)

Best,

Onno

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Onno Crasborn
crasborn at let.leidenuniv.nl
http://www.leidenuniv.nl/hil/sign-lang/