Deaf Culture In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, ‘Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people.’ (r nib. org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller’s world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap.
We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for ‘real’ communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at first, to learn of the existence of Deaf culture. To me deafness is not a defect but a source of connection. Imagine yourself deaf, growing up with a beautiful language, visual literature, humor, and theater.
Imagine taking pride in your identity without any desire to become a member of the majority culture. For many deaf people, their community is a comforting relief from the isolation and condescension of the hearing world. However the Deaf community is far more than a support group for people who share a physical characteristic. Members of the Deaf community may have hearing levels that range from profoundly deaf to slightly hard-of-hearing. But no members of the Deaf community are ‘hearing impaired.’ Inside this community, deaf people become Deaf, proudly capitalizing their culture.
The Essay on Cochlear Implant Deaf People Hearing
The Cochlear Implant The cochlear implant is possibly one of the greatest inventions designed to benefit the deaf community. Cochlear implant is a device implanted internally behind a deaf persons ear with an external microphone, and is designed to provide artificial sounds to people who have nerve deafness in both ears and show no ability to understand speech through hearing aids. Since the ...
Hearing people suddenly find that they are handicapped: ‘Deaf-impaired.’ From a deafness-as-defect mindset, many well-meaning hearing doctors, audiologists, and teachers work passionately to make deaf children speak; to make these children ‘un-deaf.’ They try hearing aids, lip-reading, speech coaches, and surgical implants. In the meantime, many deaf children grow out of the crucial language acquisition phase. They become disabled by people who are anxious to make them ‘normal.’ Their lack of language, not of hearing, becomes their most severe handicap. While I support any method that works to give a child a richer life, I think a system which focuses on abilities rather than deficiencies is far more valuable. Deaf people have taught me that a lack of hearing need not be disabling.
In fact, it shouldn’t be considered a lack at all. As a hearing allies I feel we should have an obligation to follow the suggestions of deaf adults and work for both the use of American sign language and a positive portrayal of Deaf culture in the classroom. Deaf children are entitled to know that they are heirs to an amazing culture, not a pitiful defect. In order to follow through on that obligation, one of the best things I feel we can do is try to educate other hearing people about the realities of American Sign Language and Deaf culture. Language is one of the most critical aspects of most cultures, and one which sets deafness aside from other defects such as blindness, physical disability, or illness. Sign language is not universal, nor does it always correspond to the spoken language in the same country.
For example American Sign Language is native to the United States and Canada. Deaf Canadians might use English, French, or both as a written language. But deaf people in Great Britain, while they may write in English, use a completely different sign language. (nad. org) ASL is essentially the offspring of native new world sign languages and French Sign Language.
The Essay on A Global Language: English Language
English is an international language spoken all over the world that was originally borrowed from the world. If English is used as a global language, there might be some advantages related to communication and business. However, there are also several disadvantages in terms of losing mother tongue and taking time and money. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so English should be made the ...
LSF merged with the indigenous sign languages when it was brought to the United States in 1817 by Laurent Clerc, a Deaf Frenchman who opened the first American school for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Grammatically, ASL is far removed from English. One common misconception is that ASL is simply silent English; a means of representing English with the hands. Codes such as this do exist, but they are rough hybrids of English grammar and ASL hand positions, rather than languages in their own right. ASL has a grammatical structure suited to a visual medium; there is no direct correlation between English words and ASL signs. ASL also avoids one of the biggest scourges of English: the pronoun problem, the tendency of English speakers to use ‘he’ as a generic singular pronoun representing any unknown person, male or female.
However, once a person is mentioned in an ASL conversation, she is given a location in space which represents her for the remainder of the conversation. Different ways of pointing to this location can indicate the number of people who occupy it, and their role in the conversation but not their sex. (asl info. com) Because about 90% of Deaf people are born to hearing parents, they absorb their culture from their peers, not their families. Most Deaf children who attend residential schools for the deaf pick up ASL from their classmates. Because of this source of cultural identity, one of the first questions Deaf people ask upon meeting each other is where they went to school and who their teachers were.
In this way, the Deaf community can become very close-knit, as each member becomes familiar with residential schools in various regions of the country. Deaf culture also places a great deal of emphasis on physical contact. Hugging is far more common than shaking hands, especially when parting. Deaf good-byes are unusually drawn out and even in passing not taking time to chat for a few minutes is considered rude.
The Deaf community easily becomes a second family to many people whose own families are hearing. Like many minority groups, the Deaf community has its own stereotypes of the dominant culture. Often in Deaf theater, hearing people are portrayed as rigid and unemotional. Much of this perception comes from our use of English. Information in English is conveyed almost completely orally; by contrast, ASL builds grammar into facial expressions and body movement.
The Term Paper on Parallel Language Development in Deaf and Hearing Children
Much of the past research on language development has focused on auditory language learned by hearing children. Recently, researchers such as Jamieson (1995) and Masataka (1992) have begun to study whether language acquisition proceeds in the same manner for deaf children as for hearing children. Results from studies of hearing children learning different languages have shown that the first stage ...
Hearing people certainly do use some visual cues when communicating, but these are known as ‘body language’, as extra-linguistic nuances rather than as grammatical features. As a result, when compared to Deaf people, hearing people can come off as expressionless and unfeeling. Hearing people may find themselves the butt of Deaf wordplay; if they are a bit slow on the uptake, they may be described as hearing-and-dumb. The Deaf civil rights movement is the political arm of the Deaf community. Throughout history American deaf people have been denied the right to vote, to marry, and to raise children. The Deaf civil rights movement is dedicated to fighting this kind of discrimination and raising awareness of Deaf history and Deaf culture within the Deaf community.
Although the denial of rights to deaf people smacks of discrimination, Deaf parents even today have their children taken away under the logic that a lack of hearing makes them unfit parents. Nothing backs up this logic. Deaf parents of hearing children often raise kids who become sign language interpreters; whose bilingual background is a social and professional asset. And Deaf parents of deaf children tend to raise the leaders of the Deaf community, as Deaf of Deaf are often the first to learn language, the most adept at ASL and English, and the ones who teach ASL to their peers at residential schools. These residential schools are often a social joy for the deaf children who experience their first introduction to ASL from their peers and form social networks that may last a lifetime. This is one of the major reasons that parents send their children to residential schools rather than mainstreaming them in hearing classrooms, where they are often directed to ‘special education’ instead.
Unfortunately, residential schools for the deaf are often sorely deficient in actual education. The teachers rarely use ASL or teach Deaf history and in most places are not required to. The administrations are often made up of hearing people who are still bent on assimilating the students. The focus is on word attack and speech skills, rather than science, math, history, and literacy in English. As a result, many deaf students in this country graduate from both residential and mainstreamed programs with a third-grade reading level and little chance of going to college or ever holding more than a minimum-wage job. Therefore, another major goal of the Deaf civil rights movement is parity in education; development of an educational system where deaf children can become both Deaf and literate.
The Essay on Is Daycare Beneficial For Children And Parents?
When you are a child, who takes care of you? Now, the cost of living is so high that many people under age twenty-five are moving back in with their parents. Young people are getting married later now than they used to. The average age for a woman to get married is about twenty-four, and for a man twenty-six. Newly married couples often postpone having children while they are establishing careers. ...
Hearing people can have a place in the Deaf community. Each minority group tends to welcome genuine allies and the Deaf community is no exception. But it is important for people who hear to remember our role as allies. We join the community to show our support, not to lead.
We can help educate other hearing people, but we are not missionaries to bring Deaf people into the mainstream. Deaf people are the appropriate leaders of their own civil rights movement and teachers of their children. Our role is not to give Deaf people a voice; it is to make sure that the voice already present is heard. And we can do that.
We can teach other hearing people to listen. Helen’s Legacy, 22 December 2004. The Life of Helen Keller. 24 Mar. 2005 web the Federal Glass Walls, 2 April 2000.
National Association of the Deaf. 24 Mar. 2005 web Culture, Deaf Culture. 1996-2005. 24 Mar. 2005 web.
