Australian deaf community

The deaf community in Australia is a diverse cultural and linguistic minority group. Deaf communities have many distinctive cultural characteristics, some of which are shared across many different countries. These characteristics include language, values and behaviours.

Language

Save Auslan campaign protesters

The single most unifying characteristic is sign language, which is at the centre of the deaf culture and community. In Australia, the deaf community’s language is known as Auslan. To be fully fluent in Auslan is not necessary, but what is necessary is acceptance of Auslan as a language in its own right and respect for it. A deaf person will help someone learn Auslan if that person can show that they understand Auslan’s value for deaf people. Without this understanding the person is unlikely to receive a warm welcome into the community. At best, the person will be treated politely, but as an interloper or a “tourist”. This attitude can be found in other language groups too, it is not unique to deaf culture.^[1]

Auslan

Auslan has evolved from the sign languages brought to Australia during the nineteenth century from Britain and Ireland. Auslan was not invented by any single person, hearing or deaf, it is a natural language. Any language that is used by either the deaf or the hearing will grow in response to the needs of the people and/or communities communicating it, especially between a child and parents, when it’s the first language they are taught. British Sign Language (BSL) and Auslan are both very closely related, Auslan has been called a dialect of BSL. Auslan has developed some distinct characteristics including its own unique signs since the nineteenth century. Most of these new signs were developed in residential schools for deaf children because the signers may have had little contact with other deaf communities. Auslan was also influenced by Irish Sign Language (ISL).^[2]

Two major dialects

Although there are minor differences in the language between states, overall there are two main dialects of Auslan. This is a consequence of the establishment of the two major residential schools for the deaf, one dialect is in Sydney (the north) and the other in Melbourne (the south). These two sign dialects of the north and south may reflect the differences in the signing teachers from the two different schools in Sydney and Melbourne. The state and dialect differences are large and noticeable enough to know their state of origin or even the school they attended, but are small enough not to interfere or make any boundaries for communication.^[2]

Changes

Today Auslan is undergoing serious rapid changes and expansions. Expansions are occurring in sign language interpreter services, in secondary and tertiary education and in the delivery of governmental, legal and medical services. These enormous expansions have put great demands on the language by both interpreters and deaf people themselves. These developments have come up with these three main responses: “(i) attempts to standardise usage, (ii) the development of new signs to meet new needs, (iii) the borrowing of signs from other sign languages, particularly from American Sign Language (ASL).” (Johnston & Schembri, 2007).^[3]

References