A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

As introduced in SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1, in the past, the education of deaf children was managed through various methods, but nonetheless there were two main tendencies: a spoken-oriented and a sign-oriented method. Both theories were improved during the 18^th century: the first one by Samuel Heinicke (1729-1790) and the second one by the Abbé De l’Épée (1712-1789). Heinicke was born on a farm in Germany, and after an experience in the military he worked as private tutor. Around 1754, he taught a deaf boy to write with great success, following the spoken-oriented book by Amman. In 1768, he took on another deaf boy and taught him how to speak and write with brilliant results. In 1778, Heinicke opened a school for the deaf in Leipzig. His method is defined oralist because he claimed that spoken language is the starting point for thoughts, and the written form is simply a consequence of it. This was the reason why he avoided teaching the written language first. Heinicke’s use of signs is unclear, but it is most likely that he did not reject their use, employing natural signs and the manual alphabet as a means in supporting his spoken-oriented system.

            A completely different educational model was promoted by the Abbé De l’Épée, who was born in Versailles to a wealthy family. He came upon twin deaf sisters, who had just lost their spiritual leader, and, being moved to pity, he decided to take care of their instruction. In a short time, thanks to his success, he took on other deaf pupils. In 1760, he founded the Institut National des Jeunes Sourds in Paris. Initially, he developed his own method, using the natural signs of deaf people in Paris as the primary means of communication. Increasing the number of his students, De l’Épée began to be well-known in other countries. Unlikely his predecessors, he was more than happy to spread his methodology at an international level, welcoming foreign teachers who were interested in his work.

            According to these ideal principles, in 1776 he published a book, later improved and republished in 1784, where he expounded the theory and practice of his method. His primary goal was not to teach speaking and writing to his pupils, but to enrich them through intellectual and spiritual education. In order to pursue this aim, he found sign communication to be the most efficient method. De l’Épée added the signs methodiques to the langue de sign naturel in an attempt to adapt French sign language to the grammar of spoken French (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1). He also used to consider fingerspelling as a methodological tool, and the verbs taught were followed by methodological signs which marked the tense and the aspect of the verb. Furthermore, he considered lip-reading hard to teach, but also very useful for deaf people to acquire the spoken language.

            The spreading of this sign-oriented method provoked attacks from the men who supported the opposite educational theories, such as Heinicke and Pereire. They declared that De l’Épée’s method was useless and dangerous for the learning purposes of deaf people. Although a commission analysed his method and claimed that it was valid, Heinicke remained doubtful and sceptic. De L’Épée died in 1789, and Ambroise Sicard (1742-1822) became the director of the National Institute. In 1818, he completed and published the dictionary begun by De L’Épée Theorie de Signes, where, for the first time, signs were organised by a criterion of classes of idea and not alphabetically. Sicard improved the method of his predecessor, the final purpose of teaching was for him to allow students to be able to express their own thoughts. He abandoned De L’Épée’s aim to teach signed French, in favour of a bilingual approach. Finally, Roch Ambroise Bebian (1789-1839), Sicard’s successor, refined his method and produced a manual for teaching the French language through the use of the sign language. The French method, improved by these additional revisions, was widely spread throughout Europe and across the ocean as well.

            One of the most fruitful heirs of these developments was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), an American reverend interested in deaf educational methods (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1). In 1816, thanks to an invitation from Sicard, he visited the Institute for the deaf in Paris, and after some months he got a permit to go back to America with Laurent Clerc, a brilliant deaf teacher of the Institute. In 1817, at Hartfort, in Connecticut, Gallaudet and Clerc opened the first school for deaf students: the American School for Deaf (ASD).

            French Sign Language was introduced in the new school and this is the reason why American Sign Language (ASL) is so similar to French Sign Language (LSF).

            Figure: The deaf Institutes in Italy (recreated from http://www.istc.cnr.it/mostralis/pannello10.htm, Accessed 01-01-2020)

In Italy, the first school for the deaf was opened in Rome in 1784 by the Abbot Tommaso Silvestri (1744-1789). Although he was trained for six months by De L’Épée, he chose a spoken-oriented method. He was convinced that only words had the power to distinguish men from beasts. The oral method was used until 1841, when the school was converted to signs.

            As mentioned in the Historical Background (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1), Padre Giovan Battista Assarotti is considered the real father of the sign-oriented method in Italy. In his school in Genoa, he adopted the visual-gestural method spread by Sicard. Assarotti founded his Institute in 1805, and his motto was The best method is to have no method! He created his own method, but unfortunately it has been lost because he never produced any kind of written documentation. Probably, thanks to the books published by De l’’Épée and Sicard, the French signs were imported to Genoa, influencing the Italian signs, but no proof of this contamination exists.

            In the same vein as Assarotti, the priest Tommaso Pendola founded the Real Tuscan Institute for Deaf-mutes in the 1828 in Siena, financed by Leopold II of Tuscany. Deaf students from the whole region were welcomed and trained in order to be employed in professional activities. However, in 1871 the educational system was changed and converted to an oral method.

            In 1849 (until 1950), in Bologna, Don Giuseppe Gualandi and his brother Don Cesare Gualandi founded an Institute for Deaf children, with the purpose of educating and guarantee a proper catholic instruction for their deaf students. Cesare and Giuseppe Gualandi visited many specialized centres around Italy in order to document the numerous experiences and apply the best methodology. Even if the acquisition of the spoken language remained the primary aim of the brothers, their methodology was tailored to each single student, everyone being considered as an individual case. The attempt was to avoid the overrule of a unique and universal top-down method to be applied in all situations, and to create a bottom-up method, as flexible and adaptive as a dress to cut or extend depending on the real cases. However, this individual education required an open-minded comparison with other schools and deaf Institutions, in order to start a national dialogue and create a playing field between the different approaches. In the same vein, on January 1^st, 1872 in Siena the magazine L’educazione dei Sordomuti (The education of Deaf-Mutes) was created with the purpose of connecting specialized teachers to exchange opinions and solve common problems.    

            Meanwhile, in 1841, pope Gregory XVI sent the new directors of the Roman Institute for the deaf (the one funded by the Abbot Silvestri) to learn Padre Assarotti’s methodology. From that moment on, the oral method of the Roman Institute was changed, following the Assarotti’s approach based on signs and fingerspelling. However, this new input lasted only 20 years, and in 1865 Padre Muti e Madre Kuntz (director of the opened female section) restored the spoken-oriented education. After the Italian Unification, the Institute passed under the authority of the Ministry of Public Instruction, and in 1889 was moved to via Nomentana 54, where it can still be found today.

Generally, during the first part of the 19^th century, signs were mostly used in the Deaf Institutes, or at least admitted as a transitional phase to proceed with an oral/written type of education. In that period, the emphasis was on learning and the linguistic developments of deaf children appeared to be valuable. However, towards the end of the century, this mixed approach changed in favour of a purely oralist method. The reason for this important turning point can be found in the fact that most of the Institutes concentrated in the northern part of Italy, precisely in the Lombardo-Veneto Kingdom. This area, being part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was very much influenced by the nearby Germanic culture. The progress in biology, medicine and linguistics opened new questions on educational discussions and the oral methodology was considered part of this progress. Another relevant factor was the Unification of Italy in 1861, accompanied by the pressure to homogenize all local differences. Such processes led to the suppression of cultural and linguistic minorities, in favour of one unique national culture and language. In the same spirit, educators had been questioning the relevance of training students to the use of the spoken language, used by the majority of the Italian population.      

The first Congress of educator took place in Siena in 1873 and concluded that signs had to be considered as a middle phase until the Deaf students had acquired sufficient control of the oral language. Some years later, the Universal Congress in Paris (1878) claimed that the best way to include Deaf people in the hearing society was articulatory-oriented, namely based on lip-reading. However, a crucial point in the history of signs was the International Congress of Milan (6-11 September 1880) chaired by the Abbot Giulio Tarra, a strong supporter of oralism (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1). The participants invited at the Congress supported the superiority of the oral method, except for the convinced opposition of Thomas Gallaudet, who were in favour of a mixed method. Indeed, at the end of the Congress, a vast majority voted for the purely oral system as the preferred one and signs were banished because they were considered to be damaging the acquisition of words. After the Congress, all European Deaf schools became oralist, except for the Unites States where signs-oriented methodologies and oralistic approaches continued to coexist. Neither the opinions nor the requests of Deaf people were considered during the Congress of Milan, and in this situation several associations and friendly societies were founded by Deaf people in different Italian cities, such as Milan (1874), Turin (1880), Genoa (1884) and Siena (1890). These types of societies represent the first social representational forms of the Deaf community and will lead to the development of the national body for the representation of Deaf people: ENS.

In 1911, the First International Congress of deaf-mutes took place in Rome, in order to demand improvements in the educational system, in the workplace and in all spheres of society. Ten years later, the Second International Congress in Rome demanded the extension of the legal recognition of compulsory schooling to all deaf-mutes. Meanwhile, in 1920 with the support of Giuseppe Enrico Prestini the Federazione Italiana delle Associazioni fra I Sordomuti (FIAS, Italian Federation of Associations among Deaf-mutes) was established during the First Meeting of Italian Deaf people. Thanks to the pushing actions of FIAS, in 1923 the Gentile Reform apply the extension of the mandatory school to deaf children. Since its unofficial establishment in 1932 as the Deal of Padua managed by Antonio Magarotto until the official recognition with the Law n.889/1942, ENS fostered and promoted rights and equal opportunities for Deaf people. The increased awareness among the Deaf community during this period led to reopen the debate about public schools with equal opportunities for all children (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1).

            In the following decades, during the years 1949-1954, special schools and differentiated classrooms were created in order to grant education to all people with impairments. However, the level of illiteracy among deaf was still high in the census of 1995. 1962 was the year in which compulsory schooling was extended to middle school.

            Finally, after many discussions and disagreements, the situation changed with the Law n. 517/1977 which stated the possibility for the families of deaf children to make a choice: they could continue to attend classes at the special schools for the deaf or they could decide to send their deaf children to public schools receiving re-educational moments offered by public or private services.

            Since then, doctors rather than educators were engaged in solving the problem of language acquisition and oral skills of deaf children. In fact, with the Law n. 833/1978 the local agencies set up a new National Health Service and the local health center became responsible for the rehabilitation of subjects affected by any kind of impairments.

            Although the Law 517/1977 represents a crucial change in the educational methods for the deaf, the situation during the 80s was chaotic and vague, most of the families opted for the public hearing schools, because they considered the public schools superior to the special schools, but the teachers received no training on the most appropriate educational methodology for deaf students. Furthermore, very few assistants were assigned to the classes with deaf students, and these assistants also frequently lacked specific competencies about deafness. At the time, there was not enough knowledge about the linguistic issues of deaf children, in particular, the fact that they should have better mastered the spoken language was ignored. The interpreters were not very widely spread, and in addition, most of the deaf students have been raised with an oralist-oriented education, without any language acquired spontaneously (as first languages are). The paradox was that the deaf students who were often left alone in the classroom, without the support of specialized support teachers or educators, were unable to learn either the Italian language or signs.

            A crucial step toward the improvement of the educational conditions for deaf scholars was reached with the Article n. 13 of the Law n. 104/1992 which established the presence of support teachers and individual communication assistants for people with physical or sensory impairments. These professional profiles were already mentioned within the Law n. 616/1977, however only with the Law n. 104/1992 their presence became mandatory. The individual assistant has the function to facilitate and support the communicative relationships of the deaf student with teachers and other scholars, while the support teacher profile has been introduced to facilitate the educational programs and to enhance the growing of scholars. The presence of these professional profiles in the schools had improved the educational programs.

One of the contemporary educational models is the bimodal bilingualism program, which consists in training deaf scholars by fostering the development of both communication channels (speech and signs). The Bimodal-bilingualism describes the knowledge of languages based on different channels, for example the vocal-auditory channel of spoken languages and the visual-gestural channel of sign languages. In 1989, the first experiment was conducted at the National Deaf Institute in Rome, starting with a class in the elementary school. Later, the experiment was applied to the kindergarten and then also opened up to hearing children. In 1994, a similar experiment took place in Cossato (a small town in Piemonte) in a public Nursery School. Although in the school there was no specific expertise in LIS, the parents of three deaf children decided to enrol their infants anyway. The program was strongly supported by the teachers and by a group of speech therapists who together wrote the educational plan and methodology. Another interesting experiment started in 2006 at the Institute Santini in Noventa Padovana (a town near Padova, in Veneto), and finally in 2008 in Milan a new program was initiated, entirely sponsored by local public institutions and coordinated by ENS.

            Recently, the project MoSSSis (Model of integrated special school services for Deaf individuals) was presented to the Ministry of Education by the AIES (Italian Association of Educators of Deaf Children) which stated a national educational plan for integrating Deaf and hearing children (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 3.2). One of the purposes of the project was to increase and support the knowledges of teachers and educators of Deaf children and to promote bilingual programs. The project encouraged an important lifelong learning attitude in order to prevent the situation of Deaf adults returning to illiteracy.

            Nowadays, in Italy, the visibility of bilingual programs is rising, especially into the Deaf community and an increasing number of deaf children are included in bilingual bimodal educational programs. Furthermore, today sign language is taught as a communication form in other educational environment, even to hearing children who show spoken language impairments and to children with other types of physical and/or intellectual disabilities, among other Down’s Syndrome (Trisomy 21), Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).   

            New bilingual educational programs have been also submitted within the Decree Law n. 302, which was approved by the Senate Chamber on October 2017. The Decree Law n. 302 represents a further attempt, after many others failed, to official recognize LIS and to promote the social inclusion of Deaf and Deafblind people. However, so far it remains still not discussed by the Chamber of Deputies (SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 3.2).

            The absence of national language planning officially approved by the Italian Government and the lack of funds for supporting services and tools, in order to improve the integration of deaf students, represent serious obstacles to the final disclosure of LIS in educational and training environments.