In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• A Tale of Sign Language Dictionary Making in the Netherlands
• Trude Schermer (bio)

How It Started

It was a beautiful fall afternoon in 1977 when I walked into one of the classrooms of the University of Amsterdam located in the Oudemanhuispoort. I was twenty-two, a student of Dutch language and literature about to start a second major, general linguistics.

One of my first introductions to this new field was a lecture by Professor Bernard Tervoort. As one of the founders of the new department, he was well known for his research on the communication of deaf children in the Netherlands (Tervoort 1953). He could also captivate his audience with numerous stories about his research from both the Netherlands and the United States.

His lecture was about the strictly oral education of deaf children in the Netherlands.

The main priority within deaf education in the Netherlands for almost a century was for deaf pupils to become—as much as possible—hearing people. The main focus in deaf education was therefore on learning how to speak and lipread. There was no mention at all, of course, of sign language being used. This has had consequences for the status of sign language, in the eyes of both deaf and hearing people: a sign language did not exist in a linguistic sense in the Netherlands, despite the fact that deaf people around the schools for the deaf have been using sign language at least since 1790, when the [End Page 464] first school for the deaf was established in Groningen by Henri Daniël Guyot (Betten 1990).

Tervoort's lecture would shape my plans for the future. I was taken aback by the fact that deaf pupils were not allowed to use their language in schools, that their teachers were all hearing who did not understand signing, and that their spoken language development was very much delayed compared to their hearing peers. I was puzzled. Catherine Snow, an American professor of language development at the Department of General Linguistics had told us about the importance of early mother-child interaction for the development of language. Would this not apply to deaf children as well?

In the same period, a new director was appointed at the Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child (NSDSK),¹ Truus van der Lem.² She was also puzzled by the fact that parents were not allowed to use signing with their children, given the poor results of deaf education at that time (Conrad 1979) and decided to start working together with the University of Amsterdam. The collaboration opened up research possibilities for master's students, which made it possible for me to study communication between hearing mothers and their deaf babies using video.

During this process, I had more and more questions and fewer and fewer answers. Especially influential were publications by Stokoe at that time on American Sign Language (ASL) as well as a 1979 conference in Copenhagen attended by parents from the NSDSK (see Engberg-Pedersen, this issue). In Copenhagen, the hearing parents were astonished by lectures given by deaf adults in various sign languages, which motivated them to question the approach to deaf education in the Netherlands.

Crucial to the developments in the 1980s and 90s was the close cooperation of the Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Child with the Dutch Deaf Council (established in 1977) and the University of Amsterdam. They had initiated a new approach to parent counseling, including new communication courses as part of the program for hearing parents of deaf children.

Meanwhile, I had finished my studies at the University of Amsterdam. Intrigued by the research being done on ASL, Ben Tervoort introduced me to Ursula Bellugi and Harlan Lane, and I [End Page 465] was determined to learn more about sign language research, and to do it in the United States.

I was admitted to the PhD program in experimental psychology at Northeastern University in September 1979, which was the start of a wonderful introduction to ASL research. It was a privilege to learn from passionate researchers and teachers, such as François Grosjean, Kerry Green, Joanne Miller, Marie Philip, Helen Mahut, Harlan...

中文翻译：

---

荷兰手语词典制作的故事

以下是内容的简短摘录，以代替摘要：

• 荷兰手语词典制作的故事
• 特鲁德·舍默（简介）

它是如何开始的

1977 年一个美丽的秋日下午，我走进阿姆斯特丹大学位于奥德曼惠斯普特的一间教室。我当时二十二岁，是一名荷兰语言和文学专业的学生，​​即将开始第二个专业：普通语言学。

我第一次接触这个新领域是伯纳德·特沃特教授的演讲。作为新系的创始人之一，他因对荷兰聋哑儿童沟通的研究而闻名（Tervoort 1953）。他还可以通过来自荷兰和美国的大量有关他的研究的故事来吸引观众。

他的演讲是关于荷兰聋哑儿童的严格口语教育。

近一个世纪以来，荷兰聋人教育的主要优先事项是让聋人学生尽可能成为听力正常的人。因此，聋人教育的主要重点是学习如何说话和唇读。当然，根本没有提到使用手语。这对聋人和听力正常者眼中的手语地位产生了影响：在荷兰，从语言意义上来说，手语并不存在，尽管聋人学校周围的聋人一直在使用手语。至少自 1790 年起，亨利·丹尼尔·古约 (Henri Daniël Guyot) 在格罗宁根建立了第一所聋人学校（Betten 1990），[完第 464 页]，手语就已开始使用。

特沃特的演讲将塑造我未来的计划。令我惊讶的是，聋哑学生在学校不允许使用他们的语言，他们的老师都是听力正常但不懂手语的人，而且与听力正常的同龄人相比，他们的口语发展严重滞后。我很困惑。美国普通语言学系语言发展教授凯瑟琳·斯诺（Catherine Snow）向我们讲述了早期母子互动对于语言发展的重要性。这是否也适用于聋哑儿童？

同一时期，荷兰聋哑儿童基金会 (NSDSK) 任命了一位新主任，即¹ Truus van der Lem。²她还对当时聋人教育效果不佳而不允许父母与孩子使用手语的事实感到困惑（Conrad 1979），并决定开始与阿姆斯特丹大学合作。这次合作为硕士生开辟了研究可能性，使我能够利用视频研究听力正常的母亲与其聋哑婴儿之间的交流。

在这个过程中，我的疑问越来越多，答案却越来越少。特别有影响力的是 Stokoe 当时关于美国手语 (ASL) 的出版物以及 1979 年在哥本哈根举行的由 NSDSK 家长参加的会议（参见本期 Engberg-Pedersen）。在哥本哈根，听力正常的家长对聋人成年人用各种手语进行的讲座感到惊讶，这促使他们质疑荷兰的聋人教育方法。

对 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代的发展至关重要的是荷兰聋哑和听力障碍儿童基金会与荷兰聋人理事会（成立于 1977 年）和阿姆斯特丹大学的密切合作。他们发起了一种新的家长咨询方法，包括新的沟通课程，作为聋哑儿童听力正常的家长计划的一部分。

与此同时，我完成了在阿姆斯特丹大学的学业。Ben Tervoort 对正在进行的 ASL 研究很感兴趣，Ben Tervoort 将我介绍给 Ursula Bellugi 和 Harlan Lane，我[结束第 465 页]决心了解更多有关手语研究的知识，并在美国进行。

1979 年 9 月，我考入东北大学实验心理学博士班，从此开始了美国手语研究的精彩介绍。能够向充满热情的研究人员和教师学习是一种荣幸，例如 François Grosjean、Kerry Green、Joanne Miller、Marie Philip、Helen Mahut、Harlan...