Frontiere linguistiche tra ‘normale’ e ‘patologico’. Il caso della Lingua dei Segni Italiana

The current process of marginalization involving Italian Sign Language (LIS) is a sociopolitical process the roots of which are not limited to scientific findings concerning deafness. This makes possible a comparison between the results of the most significant scientific studies on deafness with the ongoing progressive LIS marginalization. Such a comparison represents an occasion to reflect upon the boundary often instituted by the oralist discourse as well as by medical practitioners and professionals between supposedly ‘healthy’, hearing people on the one hand and people who have a ‘medical condition’, that is, deaf people, as a conceptual – and not natural, although naturalised – construction