Rola wychowania dwujęzycznego w procesie depatologizacji głuchoty

Abstract

ln this paper an alternative model of deafness and of the function of deaf education will be suggested. Rather than focusing on deafness as a pathological medical condition, we will consider the education of the deaf as a dominated cultural and linguistic minority in Polish society. Polish Sign Language (PSL) is real language of Polish Deaf Community which members are culturally and socially deaf. This is why the goal of this approach is to ,,depathologize" deafness - differences between deaf and hearing people should be seen as cultural differences, not as deviations. The problem of bilingual development in deaf children is discussed there -the role of Polish Sign Language and manually coded Polish in developing linguistic skills as reflected in the ability to use two languages - PSL and Polish. Also, the most important factors which can make it easy or difficult for deaf children to acquire bilingual competence are analysed in details.