El aprendizaje formal de una lengua de herencia signada: un proceso de empoderamiento para los/as CODA (Children of Deaf Adults)

Abstract

For most deaf people who are born and grow up in hearing families without access to their natural sign language in the family environment, the educational and associative environment are essential to allow the acquisition of a sign language and enculturation in the deaf community. For hearing people who correspond to the acronym CODA (Children Of Deaf Adults) because they come from deaf families, the associative environment may be frequented by them especially in childhood accompanying their deaf relatives but their educational environment is often totally devoid of a sign language. Thus, the competence and fluency in sign language and the ethno-linguistic self-determination of CODAs may vary as well as that of their parents. The transmission of a sign language in deaf families with hearing children can be impeded, limited, or hindered. As people from immigrant families who attend classes to affirm their mother tongue and reinforce their sense of belonging to their family´s culture is called “heritage speakers”, CODA can do the same as “heritage signers”. The overall objective of this thesis is to determine the impact of formal learning of a heritage signed language on the awareness process of the CODA individual. To achieve this objective, five studies of an autoethnographic, phenomenological, quantitative, descriptive, exploratory, and interpretative nature were carried out. They were based on the analysis of data from 73 informants, which were collected through interviews, a questionnaire, and a discussion group. Thus, the findings presented offer important observations about CODA people and reveal that the formal learning of a sign language enables them a process of awareness and empowerment of their own identity and culture. Whether in a curricular educational context or in non-formal studies, the pedagogical approach to sign language teaching is mainly focused on learning the language as a second language. There is some overlap between the objectives of this teaching and those applied to heritage signed languages, but these establish a paradigm related to the previous linguistic and/or communicative competences of heritage signers and challenges intrinsic to their confrontation with the standard variety taught. Heritage sign language learners show needs that must be considered to adapt existing teaching methodologies. The contributions of both learners and teachers involved in the unique history of heritage sign language teaching present fundamental considerations for the transmission and valorization of sign languages as heritage and open new questions about heritage languages.