ABSTRACT

There are approximately 400,000 hearing-impaired people in Japan, and among them about 160,000 people depend on the use of sign language for intellectual and affective processing and social communication. Deaf people are a minority group and their sign language is a minority language. Yet through their strenuous efforts, they have sought self-reliance and equal treatment in an attempt to win the opportunity for wider social participation. Although the circumstances surrounding them are not entirely favourable, they have surmounted many obstacles to secure for themselves an increasingly improved situation. In this paper we talk about their efforts to develop and consolidate their community and their language.