Family language policies of families with deaf children in Singapore

• Main Author: Muhammad Azzam Akbar
• Other Authors: Ng Bee Chin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Humanities::Linguistics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138285
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Language choice at home is more complicated when you have a deaf child in the family. Hearing parents are pressured into making language decisions for their deaf children, which will ultimately affect their children’s future not only in terms of academics, but job opportunities and accessibility as well. The choice of either exclusively using a spoken language, a sign language or a bimodal approach can be overwhelming. Various factors such as the instrumentalism and value of the language and the available infrastructure support come into play when weighing these considerations. This paper looked at 4 Singaporean families (2 deaf of Deaf parents and 2 deaf of hearing parents) and examined the different factors that played a part in their linguistic choices and practices at home. It was found that though both Deaf and hearing parents supported the use of Signing Exact English (SEE) at home, observations show contradicting language practices. Instead of the parents being in control of the language practices in the home domain, the children are the ones who are the actual language managers of the family. Due to the shift from SEE to Singapore Sign language (SgSL) in schools for the deaf in Singapore, deaf children seem to prefer using SgSL and parents accommodate this shift as well. Hearing parents of deaf children are conflicted about the choice of using SgSL because of the lack of governmental and school support. This lack of support from the government or school can result in long term implications to the parent-child bonds, not only for hearing parents but Deaf parents as well.