Sign Bilingualism in education: challenges and perspectives along the research, policy, practice axis

Abstract

The Ishara Research Series is dedicated to current research in sign language linguistics and Deaf Studies. The series is designed for publications that are of current relevance to the field, but are not easily accommodated within the scope of conventional outlets. In addition, this innovative format is ideal for young researchers and first-time authors publishing work of high academic quality. The series is intended to be a tool for stimulating research in emerging areas, with particular emphasis on promoting Deaf authors and authors in countries where sign language studies and Deaf Studies are not established disciplines yet. Editorial board Anastasia Bradford AcknowledgementsWhen I set out to work on bilingualism and deafness, I was not only intrigued by a type of bilingualism that involves two different modalities of expression. I was also impressed by the complexity of internal and external factors that shaped its development and maintenance. It became clear very soon that a comprehensive understanding of sign bilingualism required a cross-disciplinary approach that would allow for the consideration of the socio-linguistic, psycholinguistic and educational factors that determine deaf learners' bilingual development of a sign language and an oral language. In practice, this meant not only going beyond a developmental linguistics approach and adopting an integrated perspective on bilingualism and deafness, but also engaging in a dialogue with diverse experts, exchanging with professionals on the spot, sitting in on classes and exchanging with the bilingual deaf students themselves.The results of the research undertaken are presented and discussed in two volumes that appear in parallel. The present work complements the volume on bilingualism and deafness in which I explore language contact in the bilingual language acquisition of sign language and written language. In that volume, education is taken into consideration in the discussion of the internal and external factors that determine the development and maintenance of sign bilingualism. In the present work, we narrow the focus on sign bilingualism in deaf education and the challenges and perspectives of a bilingual promotion of deaf learners in the educational domain.