Politiche linguistiche e insegnamento della LIS

The present paper focuses on Italian Sign Language (LIS) teaching as part of the actions to take within the umbrella of language policies that can contribute to the empowerment of the Deaf Community. In particular, starting from the analysis of the nature of LIS legal recognition, this study intends to describe sign language teaching as an action of acquisition planning. This will be related also to the other two traditional actions of language policy such as corpus planning and status planning. The visuo-gestural nature of LIS and the features of its community of users will be discussed to enlighten the central role played by this language in terms of identity processes and ideologies. Finally, the importance of a co-participated project by hearing and Deaf people will be underlined to overcome the polarization of the two communities, which seems to be fed by the ideology of identity.