How do you sign "apartheid"? the politics of south african sign language

This paper provides a detailed discussion of the current situation regarding sign language use and development in South Africa and its relationship to other social and political issues related to the Deaf as an oppressed community in contemporary South Africa. The paper thus addresses three distinct but related issues: first, the nature of language planning as it applies to sign languages in general; second, the role of sign language as the vernacular language of an oppressed linguistic community in South Africa; and third, the implications of the case of the Deaf for other issues related to cultural and linguistic diversity that continue to divide modem South African society. © 1990 John Benjamins Publishing Company.