Monty, I’m in agreement with that point. English is not the native language of the Deaf, according to the many Deaf folks I have known over the years.
It’s prolly already been stated, but just to be clear, I am thinking this applies to “big D”, those born profoundly deaf, not those who become deaf thru some other means after language patterns have developed.
As I said, because it’s the language they learn to read and write in. Here, I disagree with Tyrell when s/he says that children don’t learn to read until after the age of 4; pre-schools give children basic literacy skills, i.e. letter recognition and elementary reading. Granted, it may take somewhat longer for deaf children to make the connection between those funny squiggles on the paper and the fact that combining them helps convey information, but nevertheless the connection is made at roughly the same age as hearing children. And, just as hearing children make the connection between written words and the sounds they hear, deaf children make the connection between written words and the signs they make.
Therefore, I again assert that, if a deaf child first learns to read and write in English, it is her native language just as much as ASL.
Oh, I see, Olentzero. You’re using your very own definition of native language; that is, one in which someone learns to write. Would you be so kind as to post a cite from a scholarly source that holds that to be?
Well, Monty, if I were actually defining “native language” so narrowly, I’d probably be hard pressed to come up with an acceptable defense. On the other hand, I think you’re also defining “native language” too narrowly by saying it’s only what one “speaks”.
Your definition would have made sense at the time in human history when literacy was the domain of the priesthood and educated classes, but nowadays with the generalization of literacy and the increased access to education, it makes no sense to exclude reading and writing from mastery of a language.
If a deaf person only learns ASL but never to read or write English, they’re stuck in a much more limited world, able only to communicate with anyone else who knows ASL, and in the same situation as anyone else who’s functionally illiterate in this day and age. Why should the language in which one becomes literate not be considered one’s native tongue?
You’ve just inadvertently illustrated the problem. Hearing children can make a connection fairly easily between spoken speech and the written symbols an alphabetic writing system uses, because they understand that the letters and letter combinations represent SOUNDS - that’s the purpose of that alphabet song we sing to young children, it familiarizes them with the basic sound associated with each letter of the alphabet. When we write a word in English, we are actually using an arbitrary code to represent the SOUNDS in the word, not a simple symbol to represent the word itself. How would a child who is deaf from birth,and who has NEVER understood the concept of sound and has never heard the word sounds of English, associate those arbitrary squiggles with specific words? Ironically, it would probably be easier for a deaf child to learn Chinese, where the written symbols correspond to entire single words rather than individual sounds/syllables, since the concept of words/names IS one that a deaf child who is fluent in ASL would understand - he’d just have to memorize the arbitrary symbol used for each word.
No, they don’t, not intuitively, because the signs they make are entirely different in construction than the written symbols we are expecting them to master - words in ASL are created by relationships of the hands moving through space and time, while they are created in spoken languages through sounds, which we represent on paper by arbitrary symbols. There’s no one-on-one correlation between particular sounds/syllables in English and particular movements in space-time in ASL.
Many people who are profoundly deaf from birth NEVER manage more than very basic literacy in English (perhaps 4th grade reading level), precisely because of the difficulty they have in learning the alphabetic system we use to represent the language. They not only have to master a second language, but also learn a system of encoding it that is completely different from anything they’ve experienced before. How quickly would you learn a foreign language (say Swahili), if the written mateial you were using had an entirely novel way of representing the words (say, different colors for different categories of words, such as nouns, verbs, etc.) and no one was able to effectively explain to you how to decipher that coding system - you somehow had to work it out on your own?
I’m not sure if this was even pointed out but disabled people get a great many “benifits” from the government to “even” out the play field for them. Anything from front row parking to grants to go to school or start a business. I am not 100% sure but i would be willing to bet that this School for the Deaf mentioned in the earlier posts is probable a big recipient of these funds. Are these children frobidden from taking advantage of any of these Government programs that I help fund for people with REAL need.
Another thing is that these children where not given a choice about this either and if I found out that my parents made me DEAF… well i would have some big issues and probable need some consuling… (paid for by the state of course LOL)
To add a bit to the OP, here is another article on the subject, with updates on Gauvin’s actual ability to hear.
A short quote from the article:
A gentle reminder that the sexuality of the parents is not part of the discussion here.
I took a quick look around with Google to see if I could find anything about literacy levels among the deaf, and found this page. I’m going to do a little more research into the subject, but I’m intrigued by the assertion that deaf people in the US only achieve a 4th-grade literacy level because ASL isn’t widely taught, and that the Swedish model of bilingual education (quick overview here) shows that the literacy rate is much higher when both Sign and written language are taught simultaneously - they supplement each other.
This, I think, reinforces the argument that a deaf child grows up with two native languages - the written language of the country she lives in and Sign.
Originally posted by razer:
Razer, what does your assertion that disabled people get “a great many ‘benifits’ (sic)…” have to do with the ethical/moral issues at hand? Nothing at all, IMHO. It seems like an accusation. You’re seemingly implying that disabled people aren’t deserving of things that you might feel are amenities, but are actually necessities for certain disabled people who want to live the fullest lives they can. For example, you go on to say things like;
[/QUOTE]
Do you think that Jehanne & Gauvin are undeserving of help that the state might afford any other deaf children simply because they were “planned” to be born deaf? That they don’t have a “real need”? Do you find state assistance/accomodations for the disabled to be unneccessary or amusing in some way? I certainly hope not, and that I misunderstood the spirit of your post.
Well, the mothers are giving their child an option. But I wonder how many years will it be until they let him decide? I thought with hearind aids, the earlier the person got them, the easier the transition would be.
The problem here is that the kids were never given a decision to begin with. That’s a physical impossibility, of course: parents can’t exactly consult their children before bringing them into existence. But what happens in a few years when the children ask their parents “Why did you do this to me?” It might be a different matter if a child intentionally deafened himself in order to empathize with his parents. It’s a different matter to intentionally deafen a kid in order for the parents to make THEMSELVES feel better. (I do have to wonder–will the parents still consdier the deafness is a “blessing” if, say, one of the children is hit by a car because he/she couldn’t hear the horn honking?) Further, what’s the difference between this couple, and, say, a couple who intentionally boxes the ears of their kid in order to achieve the same result?
My problem is that this couple didn’t want a child–they wanted an expectation. We’re getting to the point where the right to procreate is now the “right to a child.” That’s a moral impossibility, because the statement implies ownership of the child. I have no doubt that these women have genuine feelings of love and affection for the children, and I don’t fault them for that. Nevertheless, their desires indicate that the children were created to appease their own feelings. Like it or not, this is using the children as a means to an end.
As is my understanding, parents exist for their children, not the other way around. Of course children bring joy into the lives of their parents, but this does not mean that this joy is somehow OWED to them. If that were the case…if the “right to procreate” really did mean that everyone who wants a child is entitled to one…then whats’s to stop a state from taking children from some families and giving them to families with none?
**
The problem with this analogy is that it isn’t complete. In order to be truly analogous, the immigrants would have to have children and then refuse to ever allow their children to be taught English. That’s why this minor hijack regarding what a deaf person’s “native” language is, is unhelpful. The point is that, however well a deaf child is able to adapt and prosper, not being able to hear is simply not an advantage.
There’s no doubt that the deaf community has a great deal to be proud of in the culture it has created. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether it is proper for deaf parents to, in a sense, forcibly recruit children into that community.
[hijack]
Sign language does, indeed, seem to be a language all its own rather than an interpretation of a particular spoken language. Why, then, is there American Sign Language, French Sign Language, Swedish Sign Language, etc.? Why not settle on a sort of Esperanto sign language? Since it is a synthetic language, it should be easy to standardize, especially since it seems to be mostly standardized already. Consider the following anecdote:
**
[/hijack]
I wasn’t the one who said it, but I’ll bite. To the extent that the government aid relieves a burden on the parents rather than provides help to the child, no public aid should be given. Lemme unpack that.
Unequivocally, if someone of sound mind deliberately mutilates themselves, they should not recieve government assistance. If I lop off my hand or gouge out my eye because I take an excessively literal interpretation of the Bible (And not because I am deranged or on drugs), I have no right to ask for disability checks. Hell, otherwise I might seriously consider lopping off a finger if it got me a big enough monthly check.
Of course, the children in question here did not choose the disability; their parents chose to wound them. Now IMO, these women are at minimum unfit to be parents, and at most criminal. But since the DCFS doesn’t seem to agree with me, they will be raising the children.
At least part of the rationale behind the parents of a disabled child recieving government aid is that those parents are facing extra burdens, and financial aid can help with the medical and related costs. But by these women’s lights they are not disabled; deafness for them is a cultural identity. A lifestyle choice, as the current terminology goes. One which the government is going to allow, and I guess I’ll have to accept it.
But I bloody well won’t pay for it. To ask the taxpayers to subsidize this sick little experiment is obscene. If they have extra medical bills because their child is deaf, these women can go without vacations, new clothes, expensive haircuts, makeup, cable TV and everything else for the next 18 years. I don’t give a rat’s ass. They wanted the extra expenditure.
The catch is, of course, that taking these things from the parents takes them from the kids as well. But they might just as well take the money given to them – which is ostensibly to help account for medical expenses – and go to Hawaii. They sure aren’t going to spend it taking the kid to a doctor. So what would they use it for.
So all you can do is have a social worker assigned to the kid for life, making sure she is recieving adequate medical treatment.
Which will probably include several million dollars’ worth of psychiatric bills in the long run.
Creating a child is never completly random. We choose who we reproduce with, to some degree or another. And we are more likely to want to reproduce with people who are likely to produce children with traits that are desireable than traits that are undesirable.
As nice as it is to say that we all reproduce with no expectations for our children, that simply isn’t true for anyone. We all hope our kids are smart or maybe we hope they are tall like their dad or have a long nose like their mom or have deep philisophical thoughts like their sister. We all have expectations for our children. And there is always a degree of selfishness to having a child. People say “I want to have a baby” not “I am going to have a baby and I am pretty indifferent to the whole thing”.
I would still like to know what the ethics would be of a husband and wife who are likely to produce a deaf child procreating. Would the situation be different if they were hoping that their child turn out deaf? Would it change things if they sought each other out partially because of that?
Would children of such a union be entitled to government aid?
Does this extend only to deafness, or to other disabilities? How do we define these defects? Would a situation where something does not disable but disfigures count? How about a situation where the end result isn’t exactly a disability, but still a problem, like produceing a hermaphrodite? Are you to be held unethical (and possible criminal) if you fail to check well enough for the possilities of genetic defects? If your kid is born deaf because you failed to do a good enough investigation of your mates genetic history, have you “wounded” them? Is it different if you randomly choose a sperm donor, or are you ethically required to find a sperm doner that will provide your kid with “every advantage in life”?
And who exactly were we accusing of eugenics???
Presenting Gestuno!
“Seem?” It doesn’t seem to be a language–it is a language.[sup]1[/sup]
There’s this nifty little thing called the planet. On this planet, there are things known as regions. One of those regions is commonly referred to as America. Another of those is commonly referred to as Sweden. In these regions, there are local languages. Some of these local languages are oral. Some of these local languages are manual. We call the manual languages Sign Language. Since these Sign Languages are different in different regions, we refer to them by the region where they are commonly used.[sup]2[/sup]
[ul][li]Do a web search on “gestuno” and you’ll see that it has been tried.A similar question can go for oral languages: “Why not junk all of them and just settle on Esperanto?”[/ul][/li]
I detect a certain prejudice (or preconception or misperception or misconception) here regarding Sign Language.[sup]1[/sup]
Many oral languages function quite well right now with less standardization than English (come to think of it, English has DIFFERENT standardizations–American, Candadian, British, etc.). Why not have all of the different versions of English junk their differences?
Well, consider the following anecdote:
[ul]I was living in Seoul, South Korea, back in 1977. Went to a local shop and asked the young lady (in Korean) for film. In Korean, that word is just the English word but pronounced with a P instead of an F as Korean doesn’t have the F sound. So, she asked me, in Korean of course, what type of film I wanted. Well, since I’d been taught that all foreign words that began with an F used in Korean were changed to begin with a P and the type of film I wanted was Fuji, I asked for Pooji. Does that mean that the standardization was off? That the language was synthetic? Or that I had made a bit of an error in my translation?[/ul]
[sup]1[/sup]I’ve a friend who teaches German professionally. He has, shall we say, issues with Esperanto. Esperanto is one of my favourite languages. A couple of weeks ago when I went over to his apartment to play cards with him and a couple of other friends, I wore my “How are you feeling today” t-shirt (the one with the different faces and the words written under it to describe the feeling portrayed). This particular t-shirt is my Esperanto “how’re you feeling” one. During the card game, the four of us discussed what Esperanto is. Finally, we got the professional linguist and teacher to admit that Esperanto is not only a real language, but that it serves the purpose for which it was designed. As it turns out, his issues with the language are that it’s not all based on the particular ancient languages he’s studied. I related this because I’m not sure if I detect “issues” from you regarding Sign Language. Maybe I’m just reading that into the written word here.
[sup]2[/sup]I used the “See Spot run” literary style as emphasis.
Since we seem to have gotten on the subject of the ethics of providing government assistance to children who are purposely born deaf, what government assistance is available to the Deaf in the United States? I haven’t seen anything in this thread detailing what such aid might actually be.
furt,
That’s a very lucid, well thought out post. I’m not being facetious, I’m very impressed - you really made me think. And I agree with you, basically. I vehemently disagree with what these women chose to do - I think they acted in utter selfishness. I’m still, however, chewing over a couple points in your argument.
Originally posted by furt:
Time for me to quibble, perhaps stupidly.
The mothers don’t see the child as being disabled, but the state still does, right? I mean, no matter how the parents feel regarding the…‘physical issue’, let’s say, it’s still considered a disability by the state (& most of society, but that’s neither here nor there). In other words, no matter how you slice it, the kid can’t hear. That’s considered by the state to be a disabling condition, ergo the kid is disabled.
Also, I’m not sure that the fact that the parents’ wanted things this way negates the “extra” cost of raising these kids (as opposed to hearing kids). Indeed, they probably won’t be shelling out for cochlear implants anytime soon, but I bet they’ll have medical expenses above & beyond that of children who don’t have any congenital ‘issues’(or even disabilities 
).
Then we’ve got the “the state’s gotta watch out for the welfare of minors whose parents are nuts/evil/neglectful/plain old halfwits” thing. However, your social worker idea seems to cover that, as does foster care, etc.
Hmm. I dunno. I guess there’s just something about taking money that could help the kid away because of something the parents did that makes me a little uncomfortable, even if I totally agree with the rationale.
Allright. I guess I haven’t got this quoting thind down exactly, have I? Ooops.
Olentzero:
Here’s a couple programs that offer assistance to the disabled in general - the deaf are generally considered to be part of that population. The info is based on my memory, so just use it as a jumping off point if you’re really curious. And don’t quote me.
I’m almost certain that deaf folks who aren’t dependants can qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). It’s not exactly what you had in mind, I think, 'cause there are income rules - you can’t have more than $2,000 in liquifiable assets at once. It’s welfare for disabled folks, basically. At least, that’s how I’ve always understood it to work.
In New York State, disabled people who’re heading to college/starting into the work force can sign up with VESID - I forget what the hell the acronym stands for. “Vocational & Educational SomethingSomethingSomething”. Disabled NYS residents can get assistance with jobhunts or monetary assistance with college textbooks/tuition. I don’t think there’s a set amount, but I don't remember what their range is - I'm so helpful, aren't I? With college, there's also the requirement that you get reasonable grades - they're not going to keep giving you if you keep getting D’s.
I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of government assistance/programs specifically geared towards the deaf, but I’m willing to bet they exist.