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

• My Role in the "Linguistic Awakening" of the Deaf in France
• Marie-Thérése L'huillier (bio)

Born deaf, I was immersed in the treasures of LSF (Langue des Signes Français), thanks to my deaf parents. At school, LSF was banished in favor of oralism. During my childhood, the status of my sign language was dichotomous: it existed at home as a mother language and was forbidden at the boarding school in Asnières. At the age of sixteen, I left school with a diploma in sewing.

This article briefly traces my career path, which was initially influenced more by my personal experience than by academic studies, although I did complete studies for a BA and an MA later in my career. By chance, in 1977, the unexpected knocked at the door of my office at the Ministry of Labor, where I was working as a typist. It was my first meeting with Alfredo Corrado, an American deaf actor, and Jean Grémion, a French hearing actor, who led me to a new world at the International Visual Theater (IVT), which they founded that year. My first awareness of the historical banning of LSF dates back to when I became part of the original IVT group. This experience changed my career path and inspired me to become involved in the defense of the linguistic rights of LSF signers. [End Page 376]

Now, considering LSF to be a real language, I dedicated myself to jobs linked to LSF and Deaf culture. Being a young deaf militant woman of deaf parents, I fully participated in the emancipation and the mobilization of the Deaf community of France to defend LSF in Paris, as well as in the provinces, being inspired by the American Deaf movement (France 5 TV 2011). While being a pioneer, I led several professional lives, sometimes overlapping, over forty-three years, notably as teacher (1979–2008), storyteller on the television program Mes mains ont la parole (My Hands Have the Word, 1979–1985), producer of the adult television program L'oeil et la main (The Eye and the Hand, 1994–2003), and teacher, lecturer, and researcher in LSF (2008–2018).

Emergence of Individual and Collective Awareness in the Deaf Community

I will now describe the personal and professional stages of my linguistic and metalinguistic awareness of my mother tongue (LSF) and of written French.

On a visit to France in the early 1970s, the American deaf actor Alfredo Corrado noticed that French deaf people were much more isolated than American deaf people in terms of accessibility. That is why he and Jean Grémion, a French hearing actor, created a theater for the deaf at the Château de Vincennes in Paris in 1976—the International Visual Theater (IVT). They explained that theater is a way to change the way the hearing world looks at deaf people in France and is thus a way to defend our linguistic and cultural rights.

Prior to the creation of the IVT, deaf people—including my parents and me—lived in great misery and faced all kinds of obstacles to accessing knowledge, media, and means of communication. We were unaware of the true linguistic status of our own sign language, which had been prohibited for a long time. Deaf and hearing people have always lived side by side, and yet exchanges remained limited. Each group was unaware of the cultural and linguistic richness of the other.

As soon as I entered the working world in 1976, I felt a linguistic and cultural gap between LSF and French. I had acquired a solid knowledge of the social and cultural context of my mother minority [End Page 377] language, but I lagged behind in understanding the social and cultural context of the majority language.

At that time, the signs for referring to or conceptualizing LSF had not yet emerged, and the notion of Deaf culture was still abstract for many. Corrado and Grémion IVT productions touched on the theme of the colonization of different cultures and languages of the world, and how this led to new discoveries. For me, there was no going back after I left IVT. I decided to dedicate...

中文翻译：

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我在法国聋人“语言觉醒”中的作用

以下是内容的简短摘录，以代替摘要：

• 我在法国聋人“语言觉醒”中的作用
• 玛丽-泰蕾兹·勒惠利尔（简介）

我生来聋哑，但由于我的聋哑父母，我沉浸在 LSF（法语签名）的宝藏中。在学校里，LSF 因口语教学而被开除。在我的童年时期，我的手语地位是两极的：它在家里作为母语存在，而在阿涅埃尔的寄宿学校被禁止。十六岁时，我离开学校并获得了缝纫文凭。

本文简要回顾了我的职业道路，尽管我在职业生涯后期完成了学士和硕士学位的学习，但最初更多地受到我个人经历的影响，而不是学术研究。1977年，一个偶然的机会，意想不到的事情敲响了我在劳动部办公室的门，当时我在那里担任打字员。这是我第一次见到美国聋人演员阿尔弗雷多·科拉多（Alfredo Corrado）和法国听力演员让·格雷米翁（Jean Grémion），他们带领我在他们当年创办的国际视觉剧院（IVT）中看到了一个新世界。我第一次意识到 LSF 的历史禁令可以追溯到我成为最初的 IVT 小组的一员时。这段经历改变了我的职业道路，并激励我参与维护 LSF 签名者的语言权利。[完第376页]

现在，考虑到 LSF 是一种真正的语言，我致力于与 LSF 和聋人文化相关的工作。作为一名聋哑父母的年轻聋哑激进女性，我在美国聋人运动（France 5 TV 2011）的启发下，全面参与了法国聋人社区的解放和动员，以捍卫巴黎和各省的 LSF ）。在作为先驱者的同时，我在四十三年的时间里经历了多种职业生涯，有时甚至是重叠的，特别是作为教师（1979-2008）、电视节目Mes mains ont la parole 的讲故事者（My Hands Have the Word，1979-1985）成人电视节目《L'oeil et la main 》 （The Eye and the Hand，1994-2003）的制片人，以及 LSF 的教师、讲师和研究员（2008-2018）。

聋人社区中个人和集体意识的出现

现在，我将描述我对母语（LSF）和书面法语的语言和元语言意识的个人和专业阶段。

20 世纪 70 年代初，美国聋人演员阿尔弗雷多·科拉多 (Alfredo Corrado) 在访问法国时注意到，法国聋人在可及性方面比美国聋人更加孤立。因此，他和法国听力演员让·格雷米翁 (Jean Grémion) 于 1976 年在巴黎文森城堡 (Château de Vincennes) 创建了一座聋人剧院——国际视觉剧院 (IVT)。他们解释说，戏剧是改变法国听力世界看待聋人的方式的一种方式，因此也是捍卫我们的语言和文化权利的一种方式。

在 IVT 创建之前，聋人——包括我的父母和我——生活在极大的痛苦之中，在获取知识、媒体和交流手段方面面临着各种障碍。我们不知道我们自己的手语的真正语言地位，因为我们的手语长期以来一直被禁止。聋人和听力正常的人一直生活在一起，但交流仍然有限。每个群体都不知道对方文化和语言的丰富性。

1976 年，我一进入职场，就感受到了 LSF 和法语之间的语言和文化差距。我对我的母语少数民族[完第377页]语言的社会和文化背景有了扎实的了解，但对多数语言的社会和文化背景的理解却落后了。

当时，提及或概念化LSF的迹象尚未出现，聋人文化的概念对许多人来说仍然是抽象的。Corrado 和 Grémion IVT 的作品涉及世界不同文化和语言的殖民主题，以及这如何带来新的发现。对我来说，离开 IVT 后就没有回头路了。我决定奉献...