Insegnare la lingua dei segni italiana all’Università: esperienze consolidate e direzioni future

Sign languages are fully-fledged natural languages, endowed with the same expressive potentiality and structural complexity as spoken languages. The fact that they are transmitted in the visualmanual modality poses specific challenges to L2 M2 (second language, second modality) learners, which need to be taken into account. Italian Sign Language (LIS) has only been recently recognized as an official language by the Italian Parliament. Nevertheless, LIS has already been taught for twenty years in Italian universities. In particular, it was implemented as a specialization language in BA and MA degree courses in the BA and MA programs of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and at the University of Catania. Both universities have taken important steps towards offering specialized academic training for LIS interpreters and translators.