Aaron Makepeace: The issue of ‘BSL recognition’ needs to be taken up again (with BSL video)

There is a story I am sure you have all become aware of in regards to the official Government recognition of our language, BSL, in 2003.

Watch Aaron signing his article below, or scroll down to continue in English.

Deaf and hearing people alike are introduced to it’s heroic achievement from the warm atmosphere of a deaf club, in a pub, the endless posts parroted on Facebook or indeed, from educational material shared in level 1-6 BSL classes.

A campaign that rolled up its sleeves & really got going way back in 1985 at the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf in Manchester, the first march of which took place in 1999.

Finally, after many laborious years the government, so the story goes, officially recognised BSL as a language in its own right in 2003.

It has been as nearly two decades since this event took place and I would posit to you all, nothing has changed, in fact I’m sure you would readily agree.

Families still expend great physical, emotional & mental energy in fighting local authorities with the aim of gaining adequate BSL provision in education for their children.

In the medical context, we still are regularly faced with barriers to access of important information. Instances of children of deaf parents having to act as translator for them in medical situations are still a regular occurrence.

We are more often than not denied participation in jury duty owing to our language barrier, I would be confident in guessing no one receiving a jury summons greets it with a jovial grin on their face, tedious as it is, but it perfectly illustrates that we are not seen as equals in the eyes of the government.

So what happened? Why has “Official recognition” been such an anti climax after gargantuan efforts by our community?

Some say it was an act of “tokenism” by the state, some dejectedly opine that it was a waste of time. That nothing will ever change. What is the point?

Allow me to drop my two cents into the darkened green pond, hopefully the ripples will expand far enough to make sense of the conundrum of our linguistic rights, or to be more accurate, the complete lack of.

It may be hard to see & accept, so deeply ingrained the notion of the 2003 recognition is, yet I have to tell you, it never happened at all, Signature & IBSL centres must stop continuing the notion that it was recognised.

We have been most insidiously duped and placated into giving up and accepting our lot with a quiet antipathy that I feel has grown akin to a cancer through our community.

How can I possibly say that it never happened? I imagine you are grimacing at your screen at these words. 

Well we have to understand what “Official/Legal recognition” actually consists of.

When a language is recognised by a government, it involves explicitly stating so in legislation. Rights, protections or specific policies attributed to the language &/or its users are also explicitly stated in legislation.

For reference, we can look at Sweden, Austria, New Zealand, Finland & Hungary, all of which have explicit legislation in regards to their national sign languages, some even have sign language policies written into their Constitution. The Dutch parliament less than a week ago pledged to officially recognise DSL also, we seem to be falling further & further behind.

Another example often cited in glowing tones is the Welsh language act 1993.

This act & recognition among others things, most notably compels all public institutions providing services to the public in Wales to treat Welsh & English on an equal basis.

What happened in 2003 was, seeing protests growing in number and support was a source of embarrassment for the government, the DWP (Not parliament or government as a whole) announced that BSL “is an official language” & provided £1.5 million that went towards interpreter training,10% went to select deaf organisations, none went to deaf tutor training as expressly requested by the deaf community. They did this with the aim in mind to get rid of the negative attention they were receiving & try to placate the aggrieved without actually pledging anything.

With all that in mind, I implore you, should you think it was “recognised” in any meaningful way, to find any legislation in the UK that specifically states BSL is a language of the UK, or even so much as mentions it at all.

To this day there are four legally (domestic law or via EU charters) protected languages in the UK, Gaelic, Welsh, Irish and Cornish. If BSL were recognised it would be included in this happy menagerie of lexicon. Alas, it is not.

Yes there is now the BSL Act in Scotland, however I reluctantly say that has been somewhat innocently overhyped by those involved in its birth & their followers.

Whilst it is without any doubt a positive step forward, it is not a piece of legislation that gives BSL any legal title. It doesn’t even state it as an official language of the UK, neither does it grant the language or its users any rights whatsoever.

Its sole purpose is to compel public institutions in Scotland to create national plans to encourage the use of BSL. There is legal compulsion on the creation of the plans, there is none on the plans & their contents themselves, it is important to remember these little facts.

The issue of “BSL recognition” needs to be taken up once again with renewed vigour.

I dream of not having to justify to bureaucracy why I need BSL in order to access important information or to participate in society. I dream of our language being seen for what it is in the eyes of the state and society at large, not as a communication tool on par with lip reading, SSE or Makaton.

Whilst BSL has no legal status, government can infinitely ignore, delay or refuse outright any agenda in relation to it without recourse, the aims of #WhereistheInterpreter or the BSL GCSE campaign are two examples. We must not become accustomed to relying on the Equality Act, an act devised without language in mind, which makes no reference to our language or culture, only referencing disability. This would be fatal for the survival of BSL in and of itself.

Whereas if BSL were to gain legal recognition, the aims of these two campaigns would be achieved as a direct consequence.

When we come together we are capable of achieving great feats, the successes of deaf communities in the previously mentioned countries are examples of that.

We can organise together and must push out all organisations that claim to speak on our behalf, a problem cited by activists from before. We are perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves.

There is no better time than the present.

Aaron describes himself: I’m deaf, 32, writer, a former activist who loves a fiesty debate.