Bourdieu, Plurilingualism and Sign Languages in the UK

This chapter examines the history of deaf education in the UK, with particular attention paid to education policy through the lens of Bourdieusian theory. This lens lends a sociological grounding to the exploration of the (denied) possibilities of plurilingual education in the UK by using the concepts of linguistic capital, linguistic habitus and linguistic marketplace. Based on analysis of historic deaf education policy documents, reasons for the inhibition of plurilingual bimodal education environments are outlined, with a possible way forward based on the example of the revitalisation of the Welsh language by successive legislative and policy acts. Over the last