Legal Recognition and Media Representation of Sign Languages: South African Sign Language and New Zealand Sign Language as case studies

This thesis investigates the legal recognition of national sign languages globally, and the relationship between sign language legal recognition and the representation of sign languages in newspaper media, using South African Sign Language (SASL) and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) as comparative case studies. Drawing on sociolinguistic frameworks of language planning and policy, and language ideologies and attitudes, the study explores how officialisation impacts newspaper media portrayals of sign languages and their users. Firstly, an extensive survey of the different types of legal recognition globally is given. The survey illustrates the different types of legal recognition and gives an indication of the extent to which sign languages been granted legal recognition globally and what forms that recognition has taken. This includes educational legislation, National Sign Language Council legislation, disability legislation, and constitutional recognition. Generally, constitutional officialisation is viewed as providing more specific support to deaf people and sign languages. A detailed overview of the legal recognition processes for SASL and NZSL is also given. For the analysis of media representation of sign languages, a mixed-methods approach was employed, combining qualitative thematic analysis of ideological framings with quantitative analysis of article frequency and frequency of ideological framings. Two corpora were compiled from newspaper articles featuring mention of “sign language”, published in South Africa and New Zealand. These articles were analysed across three time periods – before, during, and after officialisation – for each country. Ideological framings taken from Carne, Oostendorp, and Baker (2024), namely “linguistic minority”, “medical/disability”, and “diversity tokenism”, together with two further framings, “exploitationism” and “hearing activism”, were used to describe the framings of articles mentioning sign language. The findings reveal that officialisation is associated with increased newspaper media attention in both contexts. In South Africa, the officialisation of SASL led to a significant rise in coverage and a shift away from deficit-based framings (e.g., “medical/disability” and “exploitationism”) toward more inclusive representations, although “diversity tokenism” also increased. In New Zealand, while newspaper media attention rose around the time of the NZSL Act (2006), ideological framings remained relatively stable. The study concludes that legal recognition can influence both the visibility and framing of sign languages in newspaper media, but the depth and nature of this impact vary by context and implementation. These findings contribute to the sociolinguistics of sign languages, highlighting the importance of sustained advocacy and policy follow-through to ensure that symbolic recognition translates into substantive linguistic rights and equitable representation.

Grantor dc:publisher

Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Mashala, Gontse Godfrey

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Huddlestone, Kate
• Baker, Anne

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/136253

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/136253