As much as deaf people love it, sign language has two serious flaws:
The overwhelming majority of people don’t know it. The deaf community does not exist in a vacuum. Being proud of one’s culture is one thing, but wanting to be isolated from society at large is crazy any way you slice it.
The grammatical structure of ASL is very different from that of written/spoken English, which can cause problems when learning to read and write.
That is why I think that everyone should be recquired to learn ASL.
Phil, thank you very much for the compliment. 
As an added bonus, the therapy got rid of any trace of a Delaware accent.
I’ve been told that it’s very strange to be around me when I’m very upset- that’s the only time that I fall back to speaking Double Dutch. (To quote my grandfather.)
You can just hear me degenerate…
Brings back memories to talk about it. I remember when I was younger- I used to sit in front of the bathroom mirror and watch myself speak for awhile every night, because I wanted to get better so badly. Little kids can be so cruel to each other.
Not entirely. I mean, I would post my audi charts onto the boards, but that wouldn’t really serve any purpose.
I have moderate damage in one ear and mild in the other. That’s only been since surgery, though. Before that I only had residual hearing in my right ear. No, I’m not deaf, and to hear some people tell it, there is no halfway. But it’s not a binary thing by any means- yes, I can hear. At the same time, though, I absolutely need compensation for my hearing loss. If I had not learned to lip read so well, had amazingly patient parents who demanded that I get the accomodations I needed, and worked damn hard to function in a hearing world, I think I would have suffered greatly.
So here I am, in between. It’s easier to just say that I’m half deaf and leave it there. Or not mention it at all, which is what I tend to do IRL.
Why, exactly, is this an insult? It’s difficult for deaf people to learn to speak, having never heard the sounds themself, or having heard them only partially.
I wouldn’t think it an insult if a deaf person told me that I signed well. (I don’t sign, but if I did).
If one of my friends were in a car accident, severely injured, and, after therapy, regained the ability to walk, it wouldn’t be insulting for me to tell him that he was walking very well.
This just strikes me as people LOOKING for an insult, where none actually exists.
The fact that she is fully or partially deaf has nothing to do with it. I would’ve given her the same compliment regardless of her hearing capabilities or lack thereof. Settle down and quit looking for veiled insults against the deaf.
She doesn’t “speak well” as a function of overcoming a handicap; she speaks well the way talented radio announcers and orators speak well.
I have a few deaf friends and co-workers. To broaden horizons, Spritle and the Mrs. took ASL classes. We learned a lot about the culture and the Identity. I don’t to reiterate what has been said above, but do want to add that there was a “movement” also to teach a different form of sign language called “signed English”. SE has more grammatical structure than ASL and is supposed to help the Deaf student to be able to read and understand the written word more easily. Eg, there is a sign for “-ing” as a verb tense, etc. My understanding is that the Deaf community is vehemently opposed to this.
Along these lines, I don’t think they are trying to isolate themselves, I think that they realize that they function quite well in “our” society and don’t NEED to change. ASL, while grammatically simple, is quite complex in that it is possible to discuss anything hearing people may want to discuss from philosophy to physics. I have given many professional presentations where Deaf individuals were present with interpreters, and have even added signs to their vocabulary (signs can be very regional and can crop up suddenly - think about how computer related vocabulary is generated).
Another point that might be beneficial in understanding the feelings of the DC is the recent presidency of Galludet U. A while back an hearing person was appointed as President. The students were outraged. It was quite an insult that an hearing person was selected. They protested until the new Prez. stepped down and I. King Jordan was selected. The students were more satisfied, but many were still unhappy. I.King Jordan is deaf, not Deaf. He lost his hearing in his early 20s. His appointment was strictly political, as if to say “We appointed a deaf guy for the students, but he can talk so we can understand him.”
BTW, I have found in my experinces that an hearing person learning ASL is often welcomed by the DC as long as he or she is not patronizing or arrogant. (and working with mainstreamed deaf students is always great when their eyes get huge when you start signing along with their classroom aide.)
“signed English” Never heard of it. There is one, ‘Signing Exact English’ or SEE. It’s losing ground lately though.
I have been a hearing person [14 years], HH [8 years], deaf & Deaf [the rest].
Hearing people do it with their mouths, HH people do it with there hands & mouth & Deaf people do it with their hands.
But then, what matters my deafness if hearing people don’t listen?
This is a subject I should know more about, but don’t.
My sister’s deaf and is quite the outspoken public figure within the deaf community. A minor celebrity of sorts, it would seem. I’ve gotten the reaction “You’re HER brother?! WOW!” more than once.
That said, I really don’t know that much about it. I can’t even sign beyond the basic alphabet. She’s a lip reader, so my parents never really encouraged me to learn. She also started going to boarding school when I was 3 or 4 so I never really got that close to her.
I do know that she’s against implants.
I only wish I was closer to her (emotionally and geographically) so I could learn more about her and her culture.
Interesting story: I went to visit my sister at Galludet College where she works. When she brought me in to meet her coworkers (who are all fluent in Sign of course) I was embarrased that I was unable to sign back. My sister explained to them that I didn’t know sign language.
What happened next was rather telling. They began to speak to me (orally) slowly and loudly, like people stereotypically do to people who don’t speak english. As if was a complete idiot or that speaking this way would make more sense. I certainly don’t think it was meant in a malicious way, just a bit of reverse prejudice of sorts.
I guess it gave me a taste of what the deaf must experience regularly from the hearing majority.
IIRC, that person could not sign either, which was an added insult (how is this person going to represent the students when she(?) couldn’t even talk to them?).
Seems like SEE is used by hearing people who learn sign language (since it tends to be taught as a word for word translation) but deaf people use their own version of ASL which lends itself better to conversations.
Are other sign languages (non-American) the same way? I know different signs are used for many/most words but is there also a conversational version as well as a word-for-word version?
My brother tends to use different versions of ASL depending on who is he talking to (e.g., his deaf friends, his hearing friends whom he taught some sign, me/our parents who are ok at ASL)…not just what signs are used, but the whole grammar style too.
And that’s another thing people should think about: boarding schools. Lots of Deaf people grew up in boarding schools, not with their families. And you can imagine that would isolate kids, and increase the sense of insularity among Deaf people. If your parents don’t sign, your family doesn’t sign, you are shipped off to boarding school at a young age, I imagine you’d have some issues about Deafness.
Now, signed english. My nephew uses SEE. It works very well for him, but I believe that his personality is especially well suited to it…he is very precise, he likes things ordered, he likes rules. And since my nephew uses it, so do I. But most Deaf people would expect a hearing person to sign using enlish word order anyway.
SEE is not really that different from ASL, the biggest difference is using english grammar and initialization of certain signs to indicate which exact synonym is used, where ASL would use context or gesture.
Anyway, I would define someone as deaf if their hearing loss is severe enough that they can’t understand speech without reading lips, no matter what the actual level of hearing loss, and you are hard of hearing if you can understand speech with some effort. The big difference is not the amount of hearing loss, but the language consequences of that hearing loss. If you are deaf then signing is easiest. If you are hard of hearing then you’ll be able to use speech. Now, the only advantage to learning speech over sign is that almost everyone else uses speech.
Sign is easier to learn though…babies can sign long before they can speak. And many of the people in the sign-language classes don’t have deaf kids, but kids with some language problem, often people who have difficulty with voice can communicate with sign.
The Mrs. and I are going to teach Spritle Jr. to sign. Studies have shown that they have muscular control and language understanding long before they are able to form sounds into words.
“The Mrs. and I are going to teach Spritle Jr. to sign”
Chances are Jr knows sign already, you just aren’t recognizing his signs. Of course, they are his signs, not ASL signs…
As for me, I have been deaf about 28 years & I just completed sign language lv.2 at junior college, pathetic, I know.