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ACARADeaf Australia’s position on the organisation established in May 2006 and known as ACARAAn open letter to the Board of ACARAWe, the undersigned, are a group of academics and other interested persons who work in the field of research into the linguistics of Auslan, and applied areas, such as interpreting and education.We are writing to express our concern at a number of statements on the website for a recently announced new organization—ACARA (Auslan Certification and Research Association, Ltd.). Our primary concern is the claim that ACARA has been established to "regulate, research and support the Australian Sign Language (Auslan) industry". Given this aim, it is of great concern that it would appear that individuals with appropriate credentials in these areas have not been consulted in the establishment of this organization or its panel. Particularly, it would seem that there has not been any extensive consultation with the representative body of Deaf people in Australia - Deaf Australia. It appears that no major universities or institutions involved in research into signed languages have been consulted in the lead up to the announcement of this new organization. For example, in Sydney, members of the sign linguistics group at the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, and academics and teachers at the Renwick Centre for Professional Education and Research (Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children / The University of Newcastle) were unaware of ACARA’s establishment. There are claims on the ACARA website that members of the organisation's board have conducted research into various areas of signed languages. However, a search on the International Bibliography of Sign Language (the comprehensive and internationally recognized authority on published works in the area of signed languages and deafness studies) reveals no mention of any such published works. Further, the website states that ACARA will conduct research. It is acknowledged that research can take many forms. Nevertheless, it is the view of the signatories of this letter that there is a great need for there to be rigorous research into the nature of Auslan as a basis for the development of materials and resources associated with the recording and teaching of the language. It would be expected that such research would be subject to normal standards of academic quality and accountability (including, for example, publication in peer-reviewed journals). A further issue of concern is the stated aim of the organization to "to generally promote and lobby on behalf of the language". Deaf Australia already has a successful history of promoting Auslan as a language. As the representative body of the community of Auslan users, Deaf Australia has a Board, which is duly elected by members of that community. Their preeminence in this role should be recognized and valued. Language standardization and regularization is a complex area fraught with issues. Ongoing peer-reviewed and published research by Dr Adam Schembri and Associate Professor Trevor Johnston has shown in detail the level of sociolinguistic variation that exists across the geographical and age range in Australia. Given the apparent lack of qualified researchers or representative members of the linguistic community who have been listed as being associated with ACARA, we are seriously concerned about any attempt by such an organization to assess whether resources "accurately reflect" Auslan. In light of the above concerns, we are writing to urge a pause in development of any agency seeking "to regulate, research and support the Australian Sign Language (Auslan) industry" without a thorough process of consultation and the representative involvement of the communities that are fundamental to the issues at hand. At very least, those communities include Deaf Auslan users themselves, and the linguistic and educational research communities. Without question there are other groups that would rightly feel that they had a legitimate stake in the development of any such authority—not least among those, of course, would be the communities of sign language interpreters and teachers. Stated briefly, we believe that there is a need for a much more broadly based and representative approach to any attempt to develop an organization professing to the aims being stated by ACARA. We are keen that these serious concerns should be made more widely known.
A note from Deaf Australia: The above letter was originally printed in Deaf Australia's newsletter, Deaf Australia Outlook in June 2006 and is posted to our website with permission of the signatories. ACARA did not at any time approach Deaf Australia to discuss their concerns or their plans for establishing their organisation. Deaf Australia contacted ACARA when we learned from others that it had been established, to question their credentials and express our concerns about their claims. ACARA responded by inviting Deaf Australia to join their organisation. According to information on its website, two of ACARA’s three Directors are the owners of Bilby Publishing, which is a business selling sign language materials (including non-Auslan materials) for profit, and the other is a hearing parent of a deaf child; to the best of our knowledge, none are native or fluent users of Auslan. Deaf Australia is a democratic organisation established by Deaf people who use Auslan, and for 20 years has represented Deaf Auslan users (both native users and those who learn Auslan as a second language). Non-Deaf users of Auslan have always been welcome to join Deaf Australia as associate members. Auslan is the language of the Australian Deaf community, in the same way that, say, Italian is the language of the Italian community. It would be absurd for non-Italian speakers of Italian to set up an organisation that claims to represent all speakers of Italian and then expect an organisation of native Italians to join it. Why would Italian people want a non-Italian organisation to represent them and their language just because they know some Italian? In the same way, it is absurd to suggest that Deaf Australia should join an organisation established by non-Deaf and non-native Auslan users that claims to represent Auslan and all Auslan users. Deaf Australia believes it would have been more prudent of Bilby Publishing to contact Deaf Australia to discuss their concerns and how Deaf Australia might help. Deaf Australia does not support ACARA but we are happy to discuss with Bilby Publishing the concerns they have about non-Auslan sign language materials being sold (including, ironically, by Bilby Publishing themselves) in Australia and to try to develop an appropriate response to this. Since this open letter and our note above were published in our June 2006 newsletter, Deaf Australia has had extensive discussions with one of the ACARA directors about our views on the inappropriateness of ACARA’s activities and claims, but ACARA continues to operate regardless, and Deaf Australia has not been approached by Bilby Publishing to discuss their concerns. Deaf Australia is now investigating the feasibility (given our very limited resources) of establishing some kind of Auslan authenticity accreditation process ourselves to ensure that appropriately qualified persons are providing this type of service. Kyle Miers, Deaf Australia President 6 th September 2006 |