A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Deaf People of Chile
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DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2011-027 ® A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Deaf People of Chile Elizabeth Parks Jason Parks Holly Williams A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Deaf People of Chile Elizabeth Parks, Jason Parks, and Holly Williams (Includes: Un Perfil Sociolingüístico de la Communidad Sorda de Chile, por Elizabeth Parks, Jason Parks, and Holly Williams, traducido por Sergio Chuao) SIL International® 2011 SIL Electronic Survey Report 2011-027, March 2011 Copyright © 2011 Elizabeth Parks, Jason Parks, Holly Williams, and SIL International® All rights reserved Abstract In September and October 2009, three researchers investigated the sociolinguistic situation of the Chilean deaf community and Lengua de Señas Chilena (LSCh) in partnership with LETRA Chile (Latinos en Traducción y Alfabetización). During four weeks of research, we visited four cities that represented northern, central, and southern regions of Chile: Iquique, Santiago, Puerto Montt, and Punta Arenas, respectively. Using participant observation, sociolinguistic questionnaires, and recorded text testing, we found that LSCh is strong and poised for immediate language development by the Chilean deaf community and partnering organizations. The deaf educational system is increasingly moving toward bilingual-bicultural education and LSCh has been recognized by the government as the language of the Chilean deaf community. Although there is some regional variation in LSCh, standardization is increasing with distribution of sign language dictionaries. Institutions such as schools and churches are encouraging deaf leadership training and empowering deaf people to make decisions for their own communities, and Chilean deaf people are eager to see their community and language develop and looking for ways to be involved and lead. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Country overview 2 Survey fieldwork methodology 2.1 Purpose and locations 2.2 Research questions and methodology 3 Deaf Chilean context 3.1 Population estimate 3.2 Government services 3.3 Education 3.4 Interpreting services 3.5 Deaf meeting places 3.5.1 Associations 3.5.2 Religious ministries 4 Chilean Sign Language 4.1 Previous linguistic research 4.2 Language relationships 4.3 Variation and intelligibility 4.4 Attitudes 5 Conclusion Appendix A: Sociolinguistic questionnaire Appendix B: List of publications Appendix C: RTT test text References 3 1 Country overview For an introductory overview of the nation of the Republic of Chile, we briefly highlight some geographic, economic, religious, and ethnic characteristics. Geographically, Chile occupies a narrow strip of land in southern South America between the South Pacific Ocean on the west and the Andes mountains on the east. Chile shares borders with the countries of Peru and Bolivia on the north and Argentina on the east (see Figure 1). It is about 4,330 km (2,700 miles) long and averages about 175 km (110 miles) wide with a land area of about 756,000 sq. km (292,000 sq. miles). The climate is very diverse as the country spans 38 degrees of latitude. Much of the terrain is mountainous with the Andes mountain range running along the entire eastern border with the highest elevation reaching 6,880 m (22,572 ft) and the country is often spoken of in terms of northern, central, and southern regions. In the map (Figure 1), the northern and southern regions have been shaded. Figure 1: Chile country map According to the CIA Factbook (2009), the country population estimate for July 2009 is approximately 16.6 million people with an 88% urban population. About 5.5 million people or one-third of the 4 population reside in the metropolitan area surrounding the capital city of Santiago, located roughly in the middle of the country. Chile has one of the strongest and most stable economies in South America. According to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, it is the highest-ranking country in South America for its gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita - estimated between 14 and 15 thousand international dollars (Wikipedia – GDP 2009). Chile is the world’s largest exporter of copper with other important exports including forestry products, fruit, seafood, and wine. According to a 2002 census, most Chileans identified themselves as Roman Catholic (70%) or Evangelical (15%) with 90% of evangelicals identifying themselves as Pentecostal. Under 700,000 Chileans identified themselves as belonging to an indigenous ethnic group and over 87% of these were of Mapuche ethnicity (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas n.d.). Spanish is the only official language, yet there are three to four indigenous languages of ethnic groups over 1,000 members (Wikipedia – Chile 2009). 2 Survey fieldwork methodology A brief summary of the survey team personnel involved, fieldwork dates, research questions, and methodology is given below. 2.1 Purpose and locations Three members from the SIL Americas Area sign language survey team coordinated fieldwork in Chile from September 10 through October 4, 2009.1 We were invited by LETRA (Latinos en Traducción y Alfabetización) Chile to investigate sign language variation within Chile, especially between the northern, central, and southern regions of the country. Our primary goals were to assist and work together with this team in answering their questions about the scope of their translation project materials that are planned to be produced in Puerto Montt. During the course of fieldwork, we visited deaf communities in four cities (listed in chronological order of visit): Puerto Montt, Punta Arenas, Iquique, and Santiago. In each location, LETRA Chile helped to connect us with their contacts on-site who then worked alongside us in gathering and preparing the survey tools. We spent roughly one week in each location, gathering wordlists (WLs), administering sociolinguistic questionnaires (SLQs), recording information gathered through participant observation, and testing intelligibility of the Puerto Montt sign variety in the three other cities that represented southern, central, and northern regions of Chile (Punta Arenas, Santiago, and Iquique, respectively). 2.2 Research questions and methodology Fieldwork was guided by the following research questions: Research Question #1: Is there low intelligibility between the Puerto Montt sign language variety and other cities in northern, central, and southern Chile? Research Question #2: Is there a low degree of lexical similarity among the deaf communities of different regions of Chile? Research Question #3: What are the language attitudes of the various regions toward each other’s sign language varieties? 1 We very much appreciate the generousness of the Chilean deaf community in graciously welcoming us and sharing their lives and language with us. Thank you all! 5 To answer RQ #1, we conducted intelligibility testing using the recorded text test retelling (RTT-R) method. The RTT-R was created using a text elicited in Puerto Montt which was retold by seven pairs of participants who are native speakers of the Puerto Montt variety of Chilean Sign Language (LSCh). The retelling results of every third pair tested (RTT-1, RTT-4, and RTT-7) were then used to identify 50 content points that all three pairs included in their retelling. These 50 content points would provide the scoring basis for the remaining intelligibility testing. The five remaining Puerto Montt tests were scored to determine a hometown baseline that we could compare to the test scores of the three participants in Punta Arenas, six participants in Iquique, and five participants in Santiago. More detailed explanation of the RTT process and results are provided in Section 0. To answer RQ #2, we elicited one wordlist each in Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas to represent southern Chile, and two wordlists each in Iquique and Santiago to represent northern and central regions. Five were female and one was male, they ranged in age from 20 to 38, had between 12 and 20 years of education, and acquired sign language between ages one and 18. Lexical similarity results from wordlist comparisons will be available in a future comprehensive study comparing wordlists gathered all over the Americas. To answer RQ #3, we made observations through participant observation and administered sociolinguistic questionnaires to 17 deaf community members, focusing on their perceptions of variation and language attitudes. (See Appendix A for a copy of the consent form and sociolinguistic questionnaire.) Due to our time limitations, the 17 participants were selected on being willing and able to participate in our research with particular focus on leaders of each community. Of the 17 SLQ participants, two were from Puerto Montt, six from Punta Arenas, five from Iquique, and four from Santiago. Ten were male and seven were female, 13 self-identified as deaf and four as hard-of-hearing, they ranged from ages 13 to 76, had educational experience that ranged from two to 20 years, and learned sign language between the ages of one and 25. Descriptions of the 17 SLQ participants are given in Table 1. Table 1: SLQ participant metadata Participant Location Gender Age Years of Education Age of SL Acquisition SLQ-1 Puerto Montt Female 20 16 3 SLQ-2 Puerto Montt Male 20 8 2 SLQ-3 Punta Arenas Female 41 16 5 SLQ-4 Punta Arenas Male 32 14 19 SLQ-5 Punta Arenas Female 60 15 10 SLQ-6 Punta Arenas Male 27 14 10 SLQ-7 Punta Arenas Male 21 16 11 SLQ-8 Punta Arenas Female 21 20 1 SLQ-9 Iquique Female 13 11 6 SLQ-10 Iquique Male 21 8 11 SLQ-11 Iquique Male 16 14 12 SLQ-12 Iquique Male 58 8 10 SLQ-13 Iquique Male 31 11 25 SLQ-14 Santiago Female 32 15 2 SLQ-15 Santiago Female 21 15 4 SLQ-16 Santiago Male 76 2 14 SLQ-17 Santiago Male 32 20 8 6 3 Deaf Chilean context In the following section, some social aspects of the deaf communities in Chile are presented in the areas of population estimates, government services, education, associations and organizations, interpreting services, and religious ministries.