How To Write An Essay About Deaf Culture

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Recommended: Reflection on deaf culture

Deaf Humor Hearing people may make the assumption that Deaf people have the same jokes as they do, just expressed in a different manner. I have learned through research that that is not entirely true. Deaf culture has its own sense of humor and style of telling jokes that is completely different than that of a Hearing person. I was naïve to believe that a joke I made speaking English would translate to a Deaf individual if only finger spelled. After reading “For Hearing People Only” I was fascinated to realize that a pun or homonym obviously would not be funny to a person who doesn’t have the same understanding of English sounds that I do. Deaf culture’s jokes cannot rely on sounds or wordplay, but more rely on body language and facial expressions. Storytelling, which is an art in any language, is truly visual art in ASL. The way the “speaker” moves …show more content…

For me personally, I jumped at the opportunity to learn ASL in a college course. I went to elementary school in Ohio that integrated its Deaf children with the Hearing children, therefore two of my best friends growing up were Deaf. So from the time I was 5, I knew the bare minimum in ASL to communicate with my friends and we even performed a song (“What a Wonderful World”) in ASL for a talent show. Unfortunately, I moved away to Florida when I was 11 and my new school didn’t offer ASL as a language credit so I took French for 4 years. I have always been fascinated by the emotional art of sign language. I never miss an opportunity to watch interpreters and I even considered becoming an interpreter myself, but alas, life had different plans for me. But apparently I am not the only one who enjoys this language so much. ASL in growing in popularity with more and more eager students wanting to learn to sign. Classes are filling up and now most schools and colleges are accepting ASL as a language credit There’s even entire DVD’s devoted to teaching Hearing toddlers and their parents sign

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