Ch. 3 The Language of the DeafWorld

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•A repository of cultural knowledge: values •Values, mores, history and artistic expression are stored in signed language for transmission across the generations. Deaf identity is highly valued; Deaf people seem to agree that a hearing person can never fully acquire that identity. •Even with Deaf parents, hearing person will miss the experience of growing up Deaf, attending Deaf school...that person more likely have divided allegiances.

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•ASL can express abstract ideas such as soul, sun, privilege, fake, etc. •It is not universal. Different countries have their own sign language same as language spoken. •ASL is not concrete which caused people to think it is primitive. •ASL has developed as fully autonomous language with a complex grammar not derived from English.

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•ASL does not rely extensively on word order, as English does, to convey meanings, it appears that Deaf children learning ASL favor a particular word order...subject-verb-object. •2 forms of negation in ASL develop early; the negative head shake and the sign no. •First indication of mastering ASL grammar, which appears around 3 yrs old is verb agreement, in which the verb moves from its subject location to its object location.

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•ASL has struggled for survival and evolved into its present form, despite hearing efforts to eradicate it. •The first fallacy is that signed language is pictorial. Visual communication is often pictorial, as pantomime testifies. But they both are different. Pantomime is not grammar while ASL is. ASL has rules of word and sentence formation.

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•ASL is a language. A Complete natural language, quite independent of English. •Linguists now recognize that the capacity to acquire a language naturally and to pass it on to one's children is rooted deeply in the brain. •ASL is different form from that of spoken languages, it is fundamentally like spoken languages in the purposes it serves and in the way which it is acquired.

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•ASL is language of a sizable minority. Estimates range from 500,000 to 2 million speakers in the US alone; ASL is the leading minority language in the US after the "big 4".. Spanish, Italian, German and French. Nothing is more central to culture and dearer to the hearts of Deaf people than their language.

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•Acquiring ASL...some from birth, some from Deaf school or later in life. •Deaf children "babble" before producing their first words in signed language. •Some studies show that acquisition of ASL may be faster than that of spoken language. Several studies show that first sign tend to appear in Deaf child's language 2 to 3 months before hearing child's first spoken word

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•America schools largely stopped using Manually coded English in the 1830's. •Second approach to ousting signed language was to use speech... •Pedro de Leon taught Deaf scions of noble families to speak, read, and write. •Samuel Howe and Horace Mann, both with no familiarity of signed language started oralism...school now is known as the Clarke school.

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•Blunt speech is not rude, but sudden departures, private conversations and breaking visual contact are. •Name signs •Information...Deaf culture also has cultural information. Cultural knowledge specific to the Deaf World includes such matters as the hours at the Deaf club; names of important Deaf leaders; how to use telephone relay services; major figures in Deaf history and how to manage in various trying situations with hearing people.

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•Charles Michel de l'Epee, the French priest who founded the first Deaf school in Paris in the late 1760's is sometimes said to have played a critical role in establishing French Sign Language (LSF). L'Epee learned signed language from Deaf people. •Abbe Sicard took school over after L'Epee died.

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•Common experiences also arise from being Deaf in a hearing society. Growing up in a hearing family...attending a school for the Deaf, getting a job with help from Deaf friends; Deaf people sharing common experiences as well from being Deaf in Deaf society. Refurbishing Deaf club; finding one's spouse, etc. Signed language is the medium of social interaction for most people in the Deaf world, it is also their medium of education and self-instruction

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•Customs...partings in American Deaf culture can take very long time and proceed in stages. They often are seen at restaurants and at Deaf public events, in lobby, etc. long after event is ended. •Introductions have particular characteristics. •Frank talks •Hinting and vague talk in effort to be polite are inappropriate and even offensive in the Deaf World.

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•Deaf children are no different from other children...the typical Deaf child of hearing parents allows a test of the hypothesis because that child is not exposed to conventional language until she or he arrives at preschool or later. •There is growing evidence that Deaf children pay penalty in grammatical mastery and in sentence processing if their opportunity to learn ASL is delayed...

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•Deaf person who adopt hearing values, looking down on other Deaf people are regarded as traitors. •Physical contact is valued; Deaf people like to get together and see one another... give hugs. •Informality, hugging, team sports and other joint activities all serve to promote this unity. •There is a fierce group loyalty in the Deaf World, reinforced by shared experiences of being Deaf in a world dominated by hearing people.

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•Deaf teachers fell from 42% down to 17% •The ostracism of signed language from schools continue to the present, although certain developments in linguistics and allied disciplines are leading to change. •Stokoe's declaration that ASL is a language in 1960's has inspired resurgence of ASL prestige, instruction and use. Deaf teachers are again in demand.

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•Example: mother give me that is inflections, showing how an action is carried out, whether it is habitual, continuing or repetitive. •For Deaf child with hearing parents, acquisition is different... they have limited access to ASL since most hearing parents do not know ASL. •Children who are exposed to MCE only which represents words in English sentences with signs from ASL.

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•Gallaudet stayed at French school studying their methods and contracted with Clerc to return to Hartford to help him establish Deaf school there.•In 1817, the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb persons opened its doors to 7 Deaf students.. •During that time, golden era in Deaf education.

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•Human beings have a biological capacity for language that involves an internal set of norms. Children construct the grammar of language they are acquiring on basis of these internal norms. That is called nativization hypothesis because children are using their native ability to construct grammars, to nativize incomplete information they receive.

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•Language variation in the Deaf World is called register...Register refers to variation in language according to the formality or informality. Intimate, casual, consultative, formal, and frozen. •Some Deaf feel low when they use strong ASL, feeling that they do not have good English. We have to remind them that ASL is their language and it does not reflect their intelligence.

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•Medium of social interaction...ASL is also a medium of social interaction in the Deaf World. This surely one reason for its power as a symbol of identity. Most Deaf children lack any effective medium of social interaction until they encounter ASL. As it enables full and easy communication for the first time

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•Minimal language skills...story about Paul mistaken taken to state hospital... •Deaf World in the US embraces wide variation in language use. Ranging from ASL monolinguals or ASL dominant bilinguals to English-dominant bilinguals. There are people with minimal language skills. National, family and educational background; age; and geographic region all contribute to the variation in ASL

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•One approach was to graft the grammar of spoken language onto signed language. •Abbe L'Epee and Sicard claimed that the "language of the Deaf" lacked grammar. So they rearranged the order of signs and by inventing new ones, the signed language would take on grammar of French.

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•Read about Congress of Milan conference... •Deaf teachers were fired, older Deaf students were quarantined in residential schools and other students were required to use oral method. •The nation's leading champion for oral movement was Alexander G. Bell. He founded the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf...now Alexander G. Bell Association.

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•Read about Congress of Milan conference... •Deaf teachers were fired, older Deaf students were quarantined in residential schools and other students were required to use oral method. •The nation's leading champion for oral movement was Alexander G. Bell. He founded the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf...now Alexander G. Bell Association.

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•Roles of ASL in the culture of the Deaf world. •Symbol of Identity...ASL is a very powerful symbol of identity in the Deaf world..in part because of struggle of ASL speakers to find their identity in a hearing world that has traditionally disparaged their language and denied their culture

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•Sharing information is highly valued in the Deaf World. Its custom of keeping one another well-informed takes over...but need pass information along...secrecy is considered rude and private conversations need to take place in private place.

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•Signed language has been suppressed in education for over a century in many areas, it could not be banished from lives of Deaf people; most of them continue to take Deaf spouses and to use their manual language at home, with their children and at social gatherings. •Variety of using ASL

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•The goal was to promote Deaf people's assimilation into hearing society and discouraging their intermarriage. •ASL was soon banned in residential schools as they came into control of hearing people with no ties to Deaf World. •A few manually taught classes for "oral failures".

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•This loyalty may extend to protectively withholding from hearing people information about the Deaf world language and culture. •Deaf believes that Deaf should marry other Deaf person. Values Deaf children highly; Deaf adults living in rural areas will drive great distances to see Deaf children when invited. •ASL literature, including history, stories, tall tales, legends, fables, anecdotes, poetry, plays, sign play, much more are highly valued.

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•Thomas Gallaudet's son Edward Miner Gallaudet founded Gallaudet University in Washington, DC in 1864, the first college for the Deaf in the world. •The more signed languages of Deaf flourished in Europe and in America, however, the more their role was contested by hearing educators convinced of the greater value of the majority spoken language.

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•When Deaf members address hearing English speakers who have limited knowledge of ASL, they often have to change to a different signed language variety as they may do on occasion with other Deaf speakers. They may utter some English words while using ASL; they may alter the word order of their signed sentences so that they are more like English sentences. That is called contact sign or Pidgin Sign Language.

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•Why do Deaf people feel at home when communicating in ASL? Barbara Kannapell asks...Deaf people can understand each other all the time in ASL but they only get fragmentary information or one way communication outside Deaf World. ASL comes easily for Deaf..it allows Deaf to share meanings, common experiences, cultural beliefs, and values.