The Relationship between the Irish Sign Language Campaign and the Irish Deaf Community

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between the Irish Sign Language Recognition campaign and the Irish Deaf community. The dissertation reviews the literature theories of Deafhood, social activism and language rights; applying the theories into the analysis of the findings. The purpose of the exploration of this relationship is to understand where the Irish Deaf community stand in terms of their understanding and their involvement in the campaign. The key focus is the social activism within the community – exploring a range of questions from how the campaign developed to how much do the community know and understand the impact in having ISL recognised as Ireland’s third official language. The research process involves the compilation of a range of data from two focus group studies that involve thirteen Irish Deaf individuals. The thesis is laid out in five chapters: introduction; literature review; methodology and methods; findings and analysis and conclusion with the findings and analysis being the main body of the dissertation. My hope for the outcome of the thesis research is that the analysis of the data gathered can provide a clear idea of where the campaign stands today in the Irish Deaf community. In achieving a clear idea, I am laying out the general attitudes toward the campaign, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses and outlining the suggestions made by the participants in the focus groups in how to improve the campaign in terms of their techniques. In doing so, I hope that the campaign can reap the benefits by considering the recommendations made in the conclusion of the thesis. Irish Sign Language (ISL) is constantly seen as a form of communication tool and the campaign is making effort in making ISL be seen and treated as a language equal that to spoken languages. In order for the campaign to be successful in their aim, they need to have full backing of the Irish Deaf community.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Duggan, Nora Kate

Language dc:language

en