Antw: Re: The Amsterdam Manifest

[Franz Dotter]

Dear all,

Ulrike Zeshan has clarified some of the points I wanted to tell you by my first email. Not to offend the deaf researchers who authored the manifesto, I should probably change my reproach of 'linguistic imperialism'. But I would like to appeal to the authors to think about whether they generalize their view in some egocentric manner.
It is true, naturally, that a huge amount of reserach was and is done on ASL and BSL and that this research also dominates the English oriented publications. This is a fact which cannot be neglected nor can the reality be 'revised'. 

To describe the situation in spoken/written scientific language: A long process since world war 2nd (which in my eyes was not forced by any regulation) now has the result that a scientist who is interested in international communication has to know English and to use it. Just for example: If I want to deliver a project proposal to our Austrian Science Fund, it MUST now be written in English. 
The communication in the European Community has two levels: The official one which provides interpreting for all community languages and which is very expensive. Therefore we have level two for all small or informal meetings: We are not forced to do so by any regulation, but we voluntarily agree in such meetings that we use English. Though you may say that such a division of levels is very peculiar, I advocate it, because it is politically correct at the official level (and by that motivates all users of smaller languages) and it is practically oriented at the other levels.

Now my perspective on the situation of sign languages:
Many politicians are not willing to accept so many sign languages (as I was told in our Austrian parliament: why not join all deaf in German speaking countries by using only German Sign Language?). This point was   one of the main reason to oppose the respective point of the manifesto, because this can be understood by people from outside as the appeal to unify sign languages by regulation (even if the authors did not intend this). The second main reason was already mentioned by Ulrike: By a regulation follwoing the manifesto we would exclude many deaf people from the communication process NOW.

I DO NOT argue against a (possible) process of the development of any sign language as a lingua franca, I only remind you of the fact that this process has been a long one for spoken languages. So the manifesto can be a starting point for discussion. But to recall the situation of deaf education, taking even a European country like Austria: The average Austrian deaf person (also those who work in our Klagenfurt team) has some difficulties with written German and does not know English to a larger extent. (S)he can communicate with deaf persons from other countries via International Sign or some knowledge of a second sign language or by an interactive, explaining 'sign exchange'. This form of communication is not working when we are entering complex themes (like scientific issues). Therefore I see the necessity (at this point in time!) to provide interpretation between signers of different signing communities. We have done that in a Europe-wide workshop already and we will do it again this September. Due to the fact that we do not have interpreters who can translate from one sign language to the other directly, we have to choose the following way: Sign language 1 is translated into English and from English we go to sign language 2. This means that we need 28 interpreters for 14 European sign languages.

I would propose that international conferences are to be handled like European meetings of the official level and tehrefore we have to fight for the financing of interpreting. Otherwise we cannot reach a situation comparable to spoken language communication. On the inofficial levels we have to act 'practically oriented'. Since we have reached this point and since we have reached a point where not only the national sign languages are offered (which is not the case now in many countries!) within deaf education but also other sign languages, then we can go for direct communication in international meetings. But. I think you can imagine, this is a long way.

Best Regards

Franz