Application of South African sign Language (SASL) in a bilingual-Bicultural approach in education of the deaf

Abstract

After contextualising the challenges of deaf education in the twenty-first century in the global context, this study focused on sign language in the environment of bilingual-bicultural education for the deaf in South Africa. Each of the five essays pinpointed particular challenges and as a result the study ventures to use empirical research to demonstrate conclusively that the issue of sign language in a bilingual-bicultural education for the deaf in South Africa, as is the case elsewhere, is a complex matter in which a motley intersection of dynamics is to be taken into consideration. Fundamentally, the study indicates that sign languages in many polities in general, and in South Africa in particular, despite positive constitutional, legislative and policy developments, are subject to a particular challenges coined as “double linguistic imperialism”: sign languages are not only marginalised by the former colonial languages that have been adopted as official languages in many states in the developing world; they are also marginalised by the dominant indigenous languages in these societies. Language policy in general and educational policy and concomitant systems in particular are some of the mechanisms that can be deployed to redress this state of affairs. In addressing the issue of sign languages acquisition and deaf education, the discussion establishes that the deaf child, in order to fully integrate into a predominantly hearing world, is faced with a particular challenge of adapting to an education system that provides for bilingual education. In such circumstances, sign language should ideally feature as first language, or mother tongue, as well as language …