After becoming more aware of the Deaf Culture, I have realized the importance to understand that every language in the world has its own culture accompanied with it. To connect with someone, is to recognize that the language and culture are one. Learning a language isn’t just about memorizing phrases and vocabulary, it’s about seeing and being immersed in a whole new culture. I enjoy being able to connect with someone where I can understand what they’re saying. Living in such a diverse community in San Diego, by being able to speak to another in their first or native language makes them feel a part of the community. My knowledge in ASL and the Deaf culture was very limited to seeing it on T.V. from the show “Switched at Birth” and interpreters. I understood that ASL was just a way to visually speak English and pictured gestures because that’s what I mostly picked up on. The language uses English words and gestures that put together picture-like, so I simply believed it was just a “visual form of english” and “a language that uses picture-like gestures” …show more content…
I would repeat words and listen to them speak, which is how I picked up my first words. It’s the same with any language including ASL, parents and/or family members would teach their children how to sign. Similar to learning English, learning Sign Language is also taught in schools. There are only two K-12 schools for the deaf in California and that’s where there is heavy population in the Deaf community. ASL isn’t just moving my hands around. When talking to a Deaf person it’s important to look at their face and focus on the facial expression. This provides context to whether the sentence is a question or just a statement. If I were to tell a story in ASL, I figured that just moving my hands in certain motions wouldn’t be as interesting if I used facial expressions with my eyes, nose, mouth, etc. .
In my family, I have a close cousin who is Deaf, and I know that many of my family members have questions about Deaf culture but are too afraid to ask. I felt the same way, which was a main reason I decided to take the ASL class. The class not only opened my mind to the study of American Sign Language, but also how Deaf culture is used in our society. This book has helped me learn a lot, from ways to respect Deaf people and to understand them, which is why I have advised my family to give the book a look as well. I definitely agree with points this book makes, because nearly all of them relate to today’s society and the world that we live in right now. Although, occasionally, some points were a bit confusing and took me off-guard, I performed some critical thinking on it and made a list of those I didn’t quite understand or agree with.
In this article, “The Deaf Body in Public Space,” Rachel Kolb explains how interacting with people who do not understand sign language could be difficult. With her hearing disability she struggled to communicate with her peers. Kolb further explains the different situations she has encountered with people and comments that are made with first intercommunications. Going further she also mentions how she struggles with two languages and two modes of communication.
Throughout the course of the semester, I have gained a new understanding and respect of Deaf culture and the many aspects it encompasses. The information supplied in class through discussion, movies, and guest lecturers since the previous reflection have aided in the enhancement of my knowledge of Deaf culture and nicely wrapped up all of the information provided throughout the semester.
As a cultural group, Deaf Americans present a thriving and distinct example of language in action. Many of the traditions of Deaf culture—including storytelling, word games, etc.—are celebrations of American Sign Language (ASL). But contemporary Deaf Americans face myriad issues, including the preservation of sign language as it relates to the child’s upbringing and education in particular. Because a child with a profound hearing loss is not able to access the language that pervades their environment, it is crucial that these children are given ASL as soon as possible. Using the framework of social neuroscience, it is possible to consider the consequences of a linguistic delay due to the absence of ASL in the child’s environment.
Sign language is a natural human language, they have their own vocabularies and sentence structures. Sign language comes into practice wherever Deaf societies come into existence. Sign language is not identical worldwide; every country has its own language and accents; however, these are not the verbal or transcribed languages used by hearing individuals around them.
It “is an important part of the social, cultural, and educational context of the hearing-impaired child’s development” (Stahlman, 349). If a person cannot communicate effectly then they may not thrive and develop while having a hearing or speech impairment. In both American Sign Language and Pidgin Signed English, a person who is hearing-impaired must learn to communicate with the world using only his hands and facial expressions. American Sign Language and Pidgin Signed English is a way for the unable to communicate. Both ASL and PSE can be taught in many different ways however, ASL is normally taught in school while PSE is normally self-taught but either way they are both a unique method of communication and can be used all over the world and can be translated and spoken just like any other language can
However, for the last few weeks of the course I came down with a nasty head cold that prevented me from continuing to develop that performative aspect. When realizing I couldn’t speak out loud, I began to turn to ASL. Generally as a performer, my goal is to become a musician that caters specifically to the deaf community using vibrations, visual aspects, and ASL to create entertainment that is accessible to everyone. To start this endeavor, I completed an ASL minor at NYU and have begun to incorporate it into my artistic work. Realizing the parallels between the association of silence between the two communities--women, who often stay silent when being pursued/who are ignored when they try to speak out, and the deaf community who, because they do not speak out loud as we do, is often overlooked--I decided to incorporate American Sign Language into my performance. As a verbally silent, but visually engaging communication form, ASL is concept centric rather than vocabulary centric. In short, it is more grammatically correct in a lot of circumstances to show what you mean rather than piecing together a sentence that has more grammatical resemblance to English than ASL. Visual intent and facial expressions command a lot of power and guide the meaning in ASL, so I used those things to show the grotesqueness of the cat-caller over the
Many people of society perceive deafness to be a disability a person has at which causes them to lack the power of hearing. Many of the people whom choose to believe that those who are deaf are disabled rather than possess a simple difference amongst them have most likely never had the chance to learn about deaf culture. Only about two or three out of every thousand children are born with detectable levels of hearing loss in the United States and an entire ninety percent of deaf kids are born to two fully hearing parents. (NIDCD) Therefore, it may be possible that a large portion of society views deafness as a disability due to the lack of background knowledge on Deaf culture.
In Ben Jarashow’s Journey Into the Deaf World, he explained Deaf culture and how it feels to be deaf within the world of those who hear. People who are born deaf have a loss of what is commonly viewed as the most important sense, hearing. This leaves them with four senses instead of five; most important sense now being sight followed by touch. In return, this means that a language must be developed that is based heavily on sight. In the United States, it was not until 1960 that American Sign Language (ASL) was recognized as its own language.
From antiquity, being deaf was looked upon as an undesirable and a culture which was disconnected with the rest of mainstream society. Often members of the community found themselves ostracized by members of other cultures, who viewed them with suspicion, and were thought to be possessed, or in communion, with undesirable “spirits”, particularly during the advent of the Christianity that was in practice during the Middle Ages. During this period, before the advent of Gutenberg’s metal, movable type printing press, the populace was mostly illiterate and religious texts and spiritual obligations/instructions were verbally transmitted to the people by the literate clerics of the day. Thus, the deaf were believed to have no access to “Fides ex auditu,” which was the primary way, and often thought to be the only way; one could reach spiritual fulfillment and salvation. (Lane, 1984)
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things” (American). For centuries, people from all walks of life have been using their hands to communicate with one another, and for centuries people from all walks of life have been learning. Today I am following in their footsteps with a passion from God for the deaf language, culture, and souls. For almost a decade, an intense ardor for American Sign Language and a desire to reach its native users for Christ seeded itself in my soul, wove its roots deeper and deeper, and blossomed into one of the greatest loves of my life. American Sign Language is a unique language with a rich history that not only provides a service to people in the deaf culture, but also to hearing people who seek to attain fluency.
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." (rnib.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. Hearing people suddenly find that they are handicapped: "Deaf-impaired."
When children are born and as they grow most of what they learn to speak is from hearing their parents talk but what if they couldn 't hear? How would they learn? Its pretty simple actually. They wouldn 't learn. Those who were born hearing but got sick or eventually lost their hearing learned a few things and use them but, eventually they turn to ASL to be able to communicate with others and be able to further their education. When having to learn this language you have to keep many things in mind such as handshape, palm orientation, location, movement and facial expression, all of those things are crucial to being able to speak this language correctly. While this language has been around for many years there are still things that don 't have an ASL name and in those cases you would do something called finger spelling, where you spell out what you are trying to say in order to get your point across.(Learning Sign Language,2) As every language you are learning a whole different way of saying things and you are also opening yourself to those who can’t really open themselves to you. The deaf community do really try to not be a burden to us. They learn to read lips or even talk because they were forced to. A couple a years ago they were restricted from learning ASL and were punished if they tried to sign. (About sign
The Deaf event I attended was the DEAFestival. This festival took place at the Los Angeles City Hall on October 3rd at 12:00pm. I specifically attended this event because I felt I would be much more comfortable at a larger gathering with more space and people rather than a small one such as Starbucks. Since the festival was greatly occupied I had more time to observe, take everything in slowly, and prepare myself. To say the least, I was extremely nervous. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I was genuinely that apprehensive. The cause of my anxiety was I because didn’t want to embarrass myself and I especially didn’t want to offend anyone. There were so many things going through my head. I stood to the side and repeated everything I knew about Deaf culture and American Sign Language in my head. Nonetheless, after several conversations with deaf individuals I felt marvelous. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated. The people I had the privilege of communicating with were very
First of all, I think that Sound and Fury was an appropriate film for us to view and analyze in this class. I enjoyed the lecture given after we viewed it, epically because it was brought to my attention that the follow up film was funded by people who make cochlear implants. We were reminded that not all documentaries are non-fiction or unbiased! I really appreciated that because I love watching documentaries (I think I needed that reminder). I also enjoyed the film, I thought it was interesting because I knew very little about the deaf word before. I have a hearing friend whose parents are both deaf, Sound and Fury made me much more curious about her childhood and how she and her sister developed speech. It also opened my eyes to how important deaf culture can be to deaf people!