Importance and Use of Sign-Language in Bangladesh. Essay Example

deaf section of our society.

1.3 Scope of the Report

To prepare the report on sign language we have surveyed two schools for deaf children in Khulna and talked with the teachers and guardians . We talked with the relatives of some deaf people aged 10-50. From the survey, we got very good information to prepare the report . However we have surveyed only in Khulna due to time and funds availability, we have learnt a lot about sign language.

We got different information from internet. But we give our effort to prepare the report as a right one.

1.4 Limitation of the Report

It is a natural thing to do work and face different limitation during working . To prepare the report we had to face so many problems and limitations. Some of those are given below-

• There are very small numbers of source from where we can get adequate information.
• People are not willing to give information because they are afraid of publicity. Parents, family members and relatives of the deaf people do not feel comfortable to talk about their handicapped family member.
• It is our first report to prepare and as a result we have inadequate experience about collecting information.
• We have a very little fund and with that we were hardly allowed to work in a big field.
• As we had a short span of time, we could not procure our report outside the Khulna city. We tried our level best to collect information from every available source.

1.5 Methodology to conduct the research

As our topic is concerned with a language, this contains a lot of data through various sources. And we found it very difficult to

determine our methodology to do this survey/report. Finally we collected our primary and secondary data from these sources: We collected our primary data by: Questionnaire: We gave people question papers. By filling it out they gave their thoughts & beliefs about sign language. Oral Questions: This section was basically for the people who can’t write. Our team interviewed them and made notes of the interview.

As most of the people were in hurry we had to make our questions fast and also make notes fast. And secondary sources from: Internet: Internet was one of the most useful sources of gathering information for our report. We have cited a few of the web pages on the Bibliography. The most useful source was Wikipedia. Books: We took help of different books. They are mentioned in the Bibliography part.

2. Sign Language & its present situation in Bangladesh

2.1 Sign Language

In general sign language denotes communication by hand or body movements. It is a mean of communication through bodily movements, especially of the hands and arms, rather than through speech. It is a gestural communication used as an alternative or replacement for speech. Sign languages resemble oral languages in every way other than their modality. So we can say, sign language is a language which uses visually transmitted sign patterns (manual communication, body language) to convey meaning -simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express a speaker's thoughts.

2.2 History

The earliest written evidence found about sign language is in the early fifth century BC, in Plato's Cratylus where Socrates indicated the need of a language if there is no voice or tongue.

The first record of using sign language was found in Jewish Society where the used to teach children 'Mishnah' which included communicating with deaf people by any means of gestures and lip reading. The first publication “Reduccion de las letras y arte para ensenar a hablar a los mudos” (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) was by Juan Pablo Bonet in Madrid.

It is considered the first modern treatise of Phonetics and Logopedia, setting out a method of oral education for the deaf people by means of the use of manual signs, in form of a manual alphabet to improve the communication of the mute or deaf people. From the language of signs of Bonet, Charles-Michel de l'Epee published his manual alphabet in the 18th century, which has survived basically unchanged in France and North America until the present time. Generally, each spoken language has a sign language counterpart in as much as each linguistic population will contain deaf members who will generate a sign language.

In much the same way that geographical or cultural forces will isolate populations and lead to the generation of different and distinct spoken languages, the same forces operate on signed languages and so they tend to maintain their identities through time in roughly the same areas of influence as the local spoken languages. This occurs even though sign languages do not necessarily have any linguistic relation to the spoken languages of the lands in which they arise.

There are notable exceptions to this pattern, however: the US, the UK, and Australia all have English as their dominant language, but American, British, and Australian Sign Languages are all

very different.

2.3 Categories of Sign Language

We can categorize sign language by its use mainly in two parts: American Sign Language -British Sign Language

2.4 British Sign Language

The name speaks for itself. The British use these symbols to communicate with the deaf.

Sign language plays a significant role to deaf community with others. A language develops collaterally with a grammar. Grammar is the element of a language that states the clear meaning of language and conveys uniformity to everyone who understands the language. From the pragmatic era of human civilization, it was the only mean of communication. It was the first sign of civilization, the body language from which sign language evolved. Though there are many other ways of conveying meaningful face to face communication, sign language along with is still playing a very crucial part in communication.

For example, the people of Japan, Thailand who possesses a very strong position in the world economy, many people of that contingent are not familiar to the international language English, where it is necessary for any people specially business personal to communicate with them. It’s the body language, which is helping the business people to communicate with others who don’t understand the same language as the business people.

2.5 Relation between Sign Language; Body Language

The history of mankind is very historic. In the prehistoric time, there was no form of language rather than body language.

And eventually sign language has evolved from body language. Now days, sign language is used among deaf but body language is used among every nationalities. And normal human being also uses body language for day to day communication. Assume a situation where two people are in distance, and

they have to communicate face to face but they can’t use any oral or written language because of any limitation, say sound, so what would they do? They have to communicate with each other using body language. Therefore, it is tough to pass a day without using body language. And the idea of using body language for deaf actually generated the idea of sign language.

2.6 Sign Language in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh People know very little about sign language. Statistics from the Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), a collation of non-governmental organizations working for the handicapped, there are as many as 8 million people with disabilities in Bangladesh. Almost 2. 6 million deaf people are living in Bangladesh. Sign Language is the first language of these people. Instead of verbal communication deaf people use sign language to express and share with others.

But it is a matter of sorrow that we still lag behind to make familiar sign language to this huge community. As a result they cannot take part in our developing activities. Even a poor number of people know the term “Sign Language”. But recently some important steps have been taken to help the language. Recently Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that her government would introduce sign language at state level for the welfare of the physically challenged people. She said this mode of communication would initially be used by the state-run television news and certain other programs.

Even she said that a Sign language day would be declared through a formal process. And after the declaration BTV has started sign language show in its 4. p. m news program.

2.7 Findings & Analysis

We conducted our

survey focusing on schools who teach the deaf and other handicapped children, because it was so hard to communicate with the deaf adults who are using this language. Our questionnaire is attached at the appendix part. From our survey we find that, only 50 percent people whom we surveyed, knew about sign language. It seemed that a few people know about sign language.

The number of people who know sign language is pretty disappointing. The next thing we enquired for is those who knew how they knew. We found that, about 50% knew about sign language by media or organization. Recently, BTV is showing sign language with their presentation of news at different times. This is the biggest factor through which people know about sign language. Other factors which are helping people to know about sign language are different organizations & NGO’s. Next we asked about if they have seen anyone using it. This ratio was 60 to 40. 60% percent of people knew about sign language where 40% didn’t.

Then, we focused on if they want to communicate with the deaf using this language. This time we found a very positive answer from them. About 70% of them agreed and other 30% didn’t. And then, we asked if they ever faced problem while communicating with the deaf using sign language. 50% of people said yes where as other 50% said no. Figure 6 Next, we asked them about the effectiveness of sign language as a medium. This time the answer was astonishing. 90% of people considered this as an effective medium of communication while the other 10% didn’t.

We asked them if they think this was the

most effective medium of communication and their answer was yes 90%, and no 10%. Figure 8 Then we wanted to know if they think steps should be taken to spread sign language. And this time everyone answered yes, it should be. Every people we asked gave the same reply. This is an indication that people think positively about sign language. After that, we asked them about what could be the effective medium of spreading sign language. They tell us that media, schools and common place & events can be an effective medium. Next, we asked them if they were interested to work for sign language. 0% of them answered yes, while other 40% said no. Figure 9 Then we asked them for suggestion that who can play the most important role in spreading sign language. They answered us the government along with media, schools where the new toddlers went to study and NGO’s for rural places can contribute well to the increase public awareness about sign language. Next, we asked them if they get motivation from their family about using sign or any other language. About 40% said yes, where the rest 60% said no. This indicates that the deaf are still treated in a very bad way.

And they are not also inspired to use a language to communicate. Figure 10 Last question we asked was if the environment was suitable or helpful to use sign language. 70% answered yes, and 30% no.

3. Summary

3.1 Ending Summary

In our report we try we convey the message that sign language is the major form of communication for deaf people . But deaf people of our country are not

getting the advantages of the language properly. The most deaf schools of our country are using oral because it needs adequate knowledge and training to teach sign language. And they are not getting those facilities.

Rather they are giving wrong effort to those whose only solution is sign language. But they are willing to work with sign language. Actually the present situation requires the effective use of sign language. Only some positive steps can change the entire situation of sign language in Bangladesh. And our government has to a play a vital role in this changing situation. If Bangla sign language gets a proper form, the work will become easier.

3.2 Some Proposals

From our survey we find that there are so many reasons why sign language is not too much familiar here. Now we are pointing out some ways to improve the present situation. Media influence greatly in our country. If they increase their scope to add sign language in their program, that will be great.

• Most sign language schools in our country are passing through many crises. So government needs to increase adequate facilities to these institutions.
• Almost 2. 6 million deaf people are living in Bangladesh and Bangla Sign Language is the first language of these people. Bangla sign language users community is the largest community among the language based minority communities in Bangladesh So we need to spread the language across the country. Prime minister of our country has declared that government is going to introduce a sign language day in our country. The application of this declaration may be an outstanding step to improve the situation.
• Many deaf people of our society are
  

deprived of the advantages of sign language. So if the concerned people of the sector come with new strategies, the situation will develop very quickly.

3.3 Conclusion

We are in need of involving our handicapped people in our development effort. To fulfill the need we have to take steps to make popular sign language in our country. To prepare the report we collect a lot of information about sign language. From the information, we have learn a lot about sign language. It has helped us a lot to know the importance of sign language .Now we know the present picture of sign language in our country. It is important to spread sign language across the country to help the disable people. If we become successful to spread it properly our country will be largely benefitted. Sign-language