Sign language in schools

Alice Coleman

Alice Coleman supports Richard Sinnott's proposal (see page 23 of R-Inventing Society, Institute for Social Inventions, 1994) to teach sign language in schools, but would take it one stage further.

There are two types of sign language, natural and artificial. Natural sign language is that which grows up by improvisation and ingenuity in areas where deaf people have been concentrated by genetic chance. Regardless of the local spoken language, natural sign languages evolve in a fundamentally similar way, so that deaf people from different countries can quickly understand each other, in what is virtually a common tongue.

Artificial languages have usually been invented to parallel the vocabulary and grammar of the country concerned. The users of one national 'Sign' do not understand users of another national 'Sign'.

So rather than teaching two different artificial languages, teach the natural international version, and encourage other countries to do the same.

Professor Alice Coleman, Department of Geography, King's College, Strand, London WC2R 2LS (tel 0171 873 2610).

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