What I find fascinating is that the human mind can construct, out of thin
air practically, languages that are not oral at all, but that have every
other characteristic of human language (e.g., not bound in time and
space, duality of patterning, arbitrary symbol-meaning relationships,
rule governed patterns, etc.), but I digress.
Where the political, economic, and social agendas clash with the critical
pedagogy angle is in the value that ASL, as a signed language, has vis a
vis "getting along in the hearing world." What this ultimately means is
that, if speech is not a possibility, then literacy is a necessity. ASL,
not having a written form, is at the same disadvantage as other
yet-to-be-written languages when it comes to the power that the languages
have -- I mean political and social (and economic) power, as well as the
cognitive power that presumeably ensues by having decontextualized
thought and infinite memory.
Tane Akamatsu
Toronto Board of Education
takamatsu who-is-at oise.on.ca