Amazed at the Irma Sluis effect
A special side effect of the corona crisis: sign language training is suddenly extremely popular. “Finally, I am no longer looked at like that when I try to order something in a sign language store,” says sign language teacher Lenny Vos.
Image: Angeliek de Jonge
It is quiet in Lenny Vos' classroom. You only hear the rustle of paper (leaves in a notebook), the unzipping of a backpack and - very subtly - the closing and opening of mouths, the pushing off of the tongue against the upper teeth and the smacking of lips. Nevertheless, eight students are busy in small groups in consultation with each other.
Vos gives a lesson in Dutch sign language to first-year part-time students. The teacher's mother tongue is sign language, she became deaf when she was fourteen months old. She immerses her students in a bath of visual language; no one speaks out loud, even if a student is unable to follow the lesson. When someone has a question, a hand is waved to get the attention of the teacher. 'How do you do a fish', you see a student ask. Moments later, they wave their palms together or apart and sniff their noses. The lesson program says 'animals'. The students expand their vocabulary with fish, bird and rabbit.
“You start from scratch,” says first-year part-time student Gabby Bakker. "It's like learning a new language with new grammar." Bakker has a background in theater and is now training to be an interpreter in Dutch sign language. According to her, it is not just a matter of learning a new language, it is just as important to learn a new culture. “In the course of deaf studies you learn about the history of deaf people in the Netherlands. I have the feeling that the deaf community is in a huge emancipation wave. The deaf community is very powerful. That gives me a lot of energy. ”
I have the feeling that the deaf community is in a huge wave of emancipation
Hoarding
At the study program at the Hogeschool Utrecht they are amazed by the Irma Sluis effect. All of the Netherlands was suddenly watching a sign language interpreter almost every week. Sluis stood out with her outspoken expression (a necessity for every good interpreter) and she made the hand gesture for example 'hoarding' extremely popular. The number of registrations grew from 100 to 120 students in September and the minor for students from other higher professional education programs increased by 100 students, 300 compared to 200 last year. “We have been fighting for years, but it is as if we have now suddenly been seen on a large scale,” says Dutch sign language teacher Tony Bloem. "We have been given a huge stage."
We got a huge stage
And that is very welcome, because many interpreters are still needed in the Netherlands, he emphasizes. There is a small top of experienced television interpreters, such as Sluis, but the majority of the interpreters go with them to a doctor, family party, course, meeting or legal case. Deaf people are entitled to a number of fixed hours of interpreting guidance from the UWV: 10 percent of the number of hours of an employment contract, for example, or entirely when following a study. “That is now quite well arranged in the Netherlands,” Bloem gestures to the interpreter Jorieke Verhoeven, who speaks his words out loud.
Own grammar
In Bloom's youth it was more complicated to study. He grew up with deaf parents and deaf siblings, uncles and aunts and grandparents. At that time, sign language was mainly a home-garden-and-kitchen language and he had to read lips outside the family. But sign language has developed rapidly, in parallel with the development of the position of the deaf and hard of hearing in society. “In my time I ran into the fact that I couldn't study, I had to force that, every time to explore my options further. Now, as a deaf person, you can study biochemistry and find an interpreter who knows the gestures and words for it. And if you both don't know the gestures of specific words, you agree on a gesture together or you borrow the word from another language. ”
Because every country has its own sign language with a corresponding grammar. The Dutch sign language was not recognized as an official language until October 2020.
Part-time student Hanneke van Zetten explains nicely how logical it is that Dutch sign language has its own grammar, which differs from Dutch grammar. If she has to interpret the sentence 'The cup is on the table' from spoken language to sign language, the grammar of the sentence becomes: table - cup - op. In that order. First she makes the gesture for 'table', then for 'cup' and then for 'on'. “If I were to start with the cup gesture, the cup would fall down, so to speak, because I haven't set the table yet.”
Van Zetten is hearing. She joined the secretariat of the sign language interpreter course ten years ago and discovered that this was her calling. She has finally started the training, but she already took many hours of lessons when she was still a secretary. "It is also quite normal that everyone in this department knows at least something about sign language."
Cab driver
The recognition of sign language can still use a pendulum, say all interviewees. Tony Bloem discovered on a trip to the United States that sign language is less unknown there than in the Netherlands. The taxi driver and the hotel receptionist both could sign at least a few words or phrases. He is also hoping for that enormously in the Netherlands. Imagine that teachers of Dutch sign language in secondary schools give guest lessons, so that everyone learns a small wealth of signs. The students in Lenny Vos' class, who are now learning 'fish', 'bird' and 'rabbit', are eager to pass on their knowledge. It would be the next step in the emancipation of the deaf.
