Sign Language research in Flanders, Belgium and the attitudes towards sign language within the Flemish Deaf community: A case of cross-fertililization

When the linguistic analysis of Flemish-Belgian first started now almost a decade ago, Fevlado, the Flemish Deaf Federation -at least its leaders- considered this type of research not necessary. Some even opposed it ! As a result, most Flemish Deaf people where unaware of the fact that their sign language was being studied and among those who were aware of it, many considered it to be unimportant. This negative attitude towards sign language research mainly resulted from the low status of sign language. Deaf people did not think of their signing as a true language but rather considered it to be some sort of "primitive" form of communication. Today within the Deaf community the opinion on sign language and sign language research has radically changed. In this paper I will discuss the different facts that caused this change. Furthermore I will show that while linguistic research has contributed -and still contributes- to the growing linguistic awareness of Flemish Deaf people, the demands and wishes of the Deaf community have had -and still have- an important influence on those studying sign language.status: publishe