Battistella Sign Language Analysis

In this article Edwin L. Battistella approaches the idea of how the English language throughout history has been seen as representing the American identity and unity, and explores the attitudes towards other minorities languages and foreign tongues. The article focuses on why those who choose to speak foreign languages are seen as bad citizens and the fear of multilinguistic within the time line. Batistella also mentions the concerns for standardization of the founders of the United States, that is, the need to have a standardized usage and pronunciation which would represent the ideals and cultural values of the people. The idea that a common language helps resolve differences and widens the understanding between those of different backgrounds …show more content…
Battistella explores how Indians were enforced to lean English as their primary language and the different ways used to enforce this ideal; like braking up families and sending their children into boarding schools in where they would be punished if they spoke any language other than English. There was also the view that sign language was an evolutionary step back and for that the deft were treated as immigrant communities. There was a shift in the teachings for deafness from manualism to oralism, which focused on teaching the deaf to speak, as sign language meant encouraging them to communicate between themselves, and spoken language is a factor of social development. The author also mentions the changes on the perception of Native American language and Sign language throughout the years and how legislative changes have been adopted in order to “support”, revitalized and maintain programs that help these communities and change the public’s attitudes towards them. The evidence to support these two arguments comes from case studies, laws like the Rehabilitation act or the Education Act, and some surveys in which the public’s opinion has represented the …show more content…
There is still the stigma that immigrants and minority tongues are a step back, and that in order to preserve unity one has to abandon their mother’s tongue and culture and adopt the host costumes, one nation -one language. The author does not really solve any problems, but helps spread the history and widespread the importance of language and multilinguistic in a society, and the different paths that the English-only laws have taken throughout the years in order to accommodate different communities, and how maybe in a future there will be more acceptance and more than one standard