The Creepy And Horrible Notion That Deaf People Owe It To Other Deaf People To Stay Deaf
Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, at Impact Ethics, "considers the problematic nature of gene therapy research aimed at eliminating hereditary deafness."
But beyond the possibility of medical risk -- which is rightly investigated and weighed -- there's this:
Members of the signing Deaf community argue that research which aims to eliminate or cure deafness is a form of cultural genocide. The argument goes like this: the use of gene therapy to cure hereditary deafness would result in smaller numbers of deaf children. This, in turn, would reduce the critical mass of signing Deaf people needed for a flourishing community, ultimately resulting in the demise of the community.
How completely barbaric. As Kant wrote, people are not means to an end but ends in themselves. No individual owes it to a community to remain less functional.
And check this out from Burke's piece:
The majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents in families that have taken up the values and norms of a society constructed for Hearing people. Most of these deaf children are not given a choice about whether to pursue their bimodal and bilingual birthright - that choice is made for them by their culturally Hearing parents.
If you wish to stop hearing temporarily, you can do as I do and wear earplugs and asshole-canceling headphones. You can even learn sign language, as I did in fifth grade, when I volunteered with deaf kids at my elementary school.
The "cultural genocide" link goes to this Harlan Lane academic paper in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. The abstract:
This article is concerned with ethical aspects of the relations between language minorities using signed languages (called the Deaf-World) and the larger societies that engulf them. The article aims to show that such minorities have the properties of ethnic groups, and that an unsuitable construction of the Deaf-World as a disability group has led to programs of the majority that discourage Deaf children from acquiring the language and culture of the Deaf-World and that aim to reduce the number of Deaf births--programs that are unethical from an ethnic group perspective. Four reasons not to construe the Deaf-World as a disability group are advanced: Deaf people themselves do not believe they have a disability; the disability construction brings with it needless medical and surgical risks for the Deaf child; it also endangers the future of the Deaf-World; finally, the disability construction brings bad solutions to real problems because it is predicated on a misunderstanding.
Sorry, but deafness means you are less able than people with hearing to function in the world. I grew up with deaf kids, and a friend of mine is somewhat deaf. She often cannot hear conversations, despite having a seriously high-tech hearing aid. This means, if there's a dinner at a loud restaurant, she's effectively just sitting there much of the time.
She doesn't want to be part of any "deaf community." She just wants to be a part of conversation in the greater human community.
Check out the outrageous argument made here by deeming deaf people an ethnic group (from Lane's paper):
Among the biological means sought for regulating and, ultimately, eliminating Deaf culture, language, and people, cochlear implants have historical antecedents, then, in medical experimentation on Deaf children and reproductive regulation of Deaf adults. There is now abundant scientific evidence that the Deaf-World has the properties of an ethnic group. Many Americans, perhaps most, would agree that society should not seek the scientific tools or use them, if available, to change a child biologically so he or she will belong to the majority rather than the minority, even if society believes that this biological engineering might reduce the burdens the child will bear as a member of a minority. Even if children destined to be members of the African American, Hispanic American, Native American, or Deaf American cultures could be converted with biopower into white, Caucasian, hearing males--even if society could accomplish this, it should not.Here lies the answer to bioethicist Dena Davis, who has argued that it would be wrong to withhold a perfect implant from a Deaf child, for the Deaf-World is a limiting one and withholding the implant would be to reduce the child's possibilities in life; it would violate the child's right to an "open future" (D. S. Davis, 1997, p. 256). It is true that minority members frequently have a less-open future than majority members; yet, we all would agree that surgery sought to help a child "pass" as a member of the majority, or simply to facilitate learning the majority language, is unethical. Why does Davis endorse such surgery on the Deaf child but not on the black one? Because she continues to see the Deaf child as disabled.
I'd like to "pass" as a person who does not get car sick from a trip a few miles across town. I also worked very hard to "pass" in the TED talk I gave -- as a person who does not have ADHD and the speedy speech and all that goes with it.
Likewise, not having full access to the ability to hear isn't something to celebrate; it's something to fix so a person can have full access to the opportunities available to the hearing.
The ADA might make a movie theater put on closed captioning -- or force Berkeley to make their free public documents unavailable to all because they aren't unavailable to the disabled -- but that doesn't make a good many of the opportunities available to hearing people available to those who are deaf.
via @BrianDavidEarp
Identity politics isn't about morality. It isn't even about politics.
Identity politics is infantilism.
It's politics for people who don't understand what p"politics" means...
And it's terribly popular.
Crid at March 12, 2017 7:55 AM
Get out of that wheelchair and crawl as God intended!
I guess this means you're a monster for wearing earplugs - it's equivalent to blackface!
MZ at March 12, 2017 8:14 AM
You saw this same mentality with the Gualladet University controversy over having a university president who could hear.
And you see it with the continuing controversy over cochlear implants and the insistence on regarding deafness as some sort of cultural identity and mark of separateness, instead of a physical deficiency that can be corrected.
Maybe is stems from fear of being left behind. If your friends can be made whole, but you can't, that means you're defective, condemned to live in silence forever while they move on to the hearing world.
Conan the Grammarian at March 12, 2017 8:20 AM
It's a quick and dirty way of gaining an undeserved constituency. Of claiming to represent people without having to ask them for their vote.
Conan the Grammarian at March 12, 2017 8:48 AM
Well, you know what they say, "Misery loves company."
Sheep Mom at March 12, 2017 8:52 AM
Deaf culture was about identity politics before identity politics was even a thing.
I learned sign language some years ago, and some of the requirements for the ASL course was a class in deaf culture. And much of what I learned from deaf culture leaves me out of sympathy with them. This is not to say I'm against deaf culture or deaf people, but there are things they espouse that I will never.
For example, they would take extreme offense at your describing them as "less functional." Trust me on this one. If a deaf person ever sees this blog entry, they will read you the Riot Act.
To which I would counter, "If you're not disabled, then why do so many of you collect disability?"
Among the deaf community, there is a common expression which is used as a particularly offensive insult, which goes (as translated into English), "You think like a hearing person."
Gotta love the double standards of those who believe themselves oppressed.
There is also an immensely popular poem among the deaf called "To a Hearing Mother," in which a deaf person addresses a hearing mother who has given birth to a deaf son. One of lines (as the poem was composed in ASL and is only translated into English) follows the deaf person saying that the child will have the hearing mother's hair, eyes, face, etc, but will have the deaf person's perspective.
Then the question is asked, "So whose child is it? Yours or mine?"
And I absolutely dumbfounded that anyone would even dare ask such a question. The child belongs to the mother, and the fact that the child is deaf is no claim on that child.
I think putting cochlear implants on a deaf child is absolutely horrible, and I would raise a deaf child as a deaf child, to let him run around and play, rather than having several tens of thousands of dollars of fragile technology implanted in his head. But no one would ever claim my child simply because he has a particular disability. Yes, I would certainly want my child to interact and play with other deaf children and of course, learn sign language.
Patrick at March 12, 2017 9:18 AM
I agree with much of this. I wouldn't put "deaf community" in scare quotes, though. It's a real community, whether one likes it or not. Unlike other disabled people, deaf people share a language, and language begets culture. Deaf people trying to preserve deaf culture are similar to linguists trying to preserve indigenous languages.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 9:38 AM
> Deaf people trying to preserve
> deaf culture are similar to
> linguists trying to...
What culture have deaf people built? And why are the rest of us supposed to admire it?
Do they have special clothes? Do they eat special foods? Do they have their on financial and investment devices? Technologies? Have they created their own medical systems, transportation systems, or literature?
Dafuq?
Crid at March 12, 2017 9:56 AM
Google exists. If you'd like to learn more about deaf culture (or gay culture or black culture or any kind of culture, really) you can use it. No one is asking you to admire anything, Crid. No one is thinking of you at all.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 10:01 AM
"Google exists. If you'd like to learn more about deaf culture (or gay culture or black culture or any kind of culture, really) you can use it. No one is asking you to admire anything, Crid. No one is thinking of you at all."
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 10:01 AM
You dont know what culture is.
Whatever the hallmarks that *define* a culture. Deafness or something as trivial as the color of your skin, or sexual preferences ain't it.
Cultures are never defined by a single characteristic a group of people have in common but identity politics has struggled hard to make it so for their own victim ideology and government benefit grabbing goals.
Isab at March 12, 2017 10:30 AM
Perhaps the more accurate term would be subculture, then. Either way, terms like "deaf culture," "black culture," "gay culture," etc. describe real experiences. Of course, you'll always have deaf, black, or gay people who choose not to participate in those subcultures, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean those subcultures don't exist. For example, I'm from the South. Where I was born is a relatively trivial thing, but that doesn't mean Southern culture doesn't exist. It absolutely does, even if I personally don't have a strong Southern accent.
Anyway, I largely agree with Alkon. No one is required to participate in a subculture. There's nothing wrong with getting cochlear implants. (As a Catholic, though, I'm against gene therapy.) At the same time, I understand people who wish to preserve their language. There was no need for her to use scare quotes, since the deaf community is a real community.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 10:39 AM
> No one is thinking of
> you at all.
This is blessedly convenient! Because I haven't been thinking of them, nor has anyone else in my family, social, literary or media circles.
So I've never heard (of) any deaf folklore. Their dances, wooing patterns and dietary habits are a featureless mystery to me, as are their distinctive scientific investigations, athletic preferences, warfare techniques and and political rhetoric.
Because, of course, there are indisputably no such things.
Smirking —childishly— that My life is spesh-shull and you cain't have none does not a culture make.
Crid at March 12, 2017 10:53 AM
...Unless you've Googled an enriching link we can all follow?
No?
Well then.
Crid at March 12, 2017 10:54 AM
Besides, why don't the deaf have their own Google?
...Because the notion is preposterous on its face.
Crid at March 12, 2017 10:55 AM
Patrick: "Deaf culture was about identity politics before identity politics was even a thing"
Amen! I went to school in DC and dealt with some folks from Gallaudet University and that was very much their attitude. I remember how upset they were about cochlear implants; it wasn't as if they were being given something, it was more like they felt something was being stolen from them.
Many that I knew felt that cochlear implants should be banned - for everyone!
Oh, and this was way back when the peanut farmer was president. I can only imagine that it is worse today.
charles at March 12, 2017 10:56 AM
This is a really complex issue. I think the deaf are correct to fear the loss of their community and language. They like their lives as they are now. I see this as an example of how technology is changing life faster than humans can cope. Sign language may become obsolete along with many languages which have disappeared. Many lifestyles have become rare such as hunter-gatherer. Change is coming faster and faster. It's a brave new world .
Carey Haug at March 12, 2017 11:26 AM
"I think the deaf are correct to fear the loss of their community and language"
I think people are genetically programmed to fear change.
The deaf identity as a community was an ephemeral construct built on a mid twentieth century transportation and communication system that allowed them to identify each other and band together to lobby for government preferences.
Technology such as texting, close captionong, voice to text, and personal computers, have now eliminated the need for sign language and sign langage interpreters in a classroom. It was a flash in the pan historically and is now about as practical as Sanskrit.
The deaf communities' fear of losing their political clout through technological solutions which enable their full participation in Work and education are real, BUT no more legitimate or special than anyone else's fear of the future.
Isab at March 12, 2017 12:03 PM
As for deaf culture being a culture, it has its own language. That alone qualifies it as a culture.
Patrick at March 12, 2017 1:03 PM
Isab: Technology such as texting, close captionong, voice to text, and personal computers, have now eliminated the need for sign language and sign langage interpreters in a classroom.
In the classroom, maybe. Personally, most deaf people (and the hearing people in their families who know ASL) prefer to sign because it's more convenient and expressive, and I doubt that's going to change even with technological advances. Saying that technology will replace the need for sign language is like saying that Google Translate will replace the need for people to learn new languages the old-fashioned way; that's just not true.
For many adults who were born deaf, a cochlear implant is basically useless. The brain simply won't be wired to process sound, and cochlear implants don't restore "normal" sound, anyway. There are many who get them who dislike them enough to have them removed.
As Alkon said, "No individual owes it to a community to remain less functional." I think that's absolutely true. Those who wish to get cochlear implants should, although I also understand those who want to wait until the technology is more developed. Those who do not wish to get them, though, should also be respected, since they know what works best for their lives.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 1:07 PM
To clarify my last comment, when I said "personally," I meant "socially." I think there's a difference between classroom/work accommodations and the ways people choose to communicate with their friends and family members.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 1:28 PM
Yea and no. It has a different method of communicating in the accepted language of the hearing world around it - e.g., ASL is American English communicated by non-spoken signals.
As far as I know, ASL does not vary significantly from standard American English rules or usage except to facilitate a different method of communicating.
Conan the Grammarian at March 12, 2017 1:34 PM
"In the classroom, maybe. Personally, most deaf people (and the hearing people in their families who know ASL) prefer to sign because it's more convenient and expressive,"
Convenient maybe, but not particularly expresive except for very basic communication. Studies I read years ago said the average deaf student, with IQ's being equal was two to three grade levels behind his hearing counterpart because of the shear volume of information we receive through our ears.
The deaf miss a lot of context
To work at all, sign language has to simply English to an elementary school level. This is fine if you are communicating with a ten year old. Not so good when you need to communicate advanced concepts like law or history.
As an experiment try signing a college physics lecture.
"As Alkon said, "No individual owes it to a community to remain less functional." I think that's absolutely true. Those who wish to get cochlear implants should, although I also understand those who want to wait until the technology is more developed. Those who do not wish to get them, though, should also be respected, since they know what works best for their lives.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 1:07 PM"
As long as they are waiting on their own private dime for the perfect solution to their disability, Ive got no problem with that.
If they are using the lack of perfection in hearing technology as an excuse to stay on SSI disability, I do.
Isab at March 12, 2017 1:36 PM
Perhaps that's the source of some of the animosity. If you weren't born hearing, being given some form of hearing later in life, does not automatically enable you to process sounds as if you were born hearing them all your life. You're behind everyone around you. Yet when you were deaf, you could make the world bend to accommodate you. Post implant, the hearing world expects you to catch up to it almost immediately.
Conan the Grammarian at March 12, 2017 1:39 PM
Having a community/culture/language does NOT make an ethnicity. By virtue of the fact that 90% of those born into the community have parents who are not deaf, it's not an ethnicity (http://www.deafwebsites.com/resources/deaf-stats.html)
I also take umbrage at the assertion that "Deaf people themselves do not believe they have a disability."
The deaf community includes those who lost their hearing - and I'm betting a lot of those folks would like it back.
That's not to say all deaf people would feel that way, but there wouldn't be such a market for hearing aids if some of them didn't value it.
Shannon at March 12, 2017 1:53 PM
Conan the Grammarian: As far as I know, ASL does not vary significantly from standard American English rules or usage except to facilitate a different method of communicating.
I'm not deaf myself, and I don't know ASL, but everything I have read about ASL has claimed that it originated independently of English linguistic influence. I used to belong to a church with a very active deaf ministry. Two of my good friends from that church are interpreters married to deaf people. One of their deaf spouses is a lawyer, and the other one is an audiologist, so, respectfully, I don't think you're quite right about that advanced concepts thing. (The lawyer was born deaf, the audiologist lost her hearing as an adult due to Ménière's disease.) The interpreters always said that the grammar of ASL is totally different. Now, I am most certainly not a grammarian, so I can't check that claim, but that's what they said.
(I love your screen name, by the way.)
Isab: If they are using the lack of perfection in hearing technology as an excuse to stay on SSI disability, I do.
Like I said, many born-deaf adults are not candidates for cochlear implants, anyway. It can take people with cochlear implants nearly a decade of speech and hearing therapy to be able to effectively enter the hearing world, during which time they will still be on disability. It's not like the deaf community is an exorbitant strain on our taxes, anyway. If that's your primary concern, you might need to find other priorities. Either way, the government can't compel people to undergo a treatment that is painful and has hit-or-miss outcomes.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 1:58 PM
Conan the Grammarian: Here's one of the articles about ASL that I was referring to.
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 2:00 PM
"I'm not deaf myself, and I don't know ASL, but everything I have read about ASL has claimed that it originated independently of English linguistic influence"
They were bullshitting you,
If you had taken any linguistics history you would understand why. Languages do not exist independently from other languages.
English doesn't exist independently either.
My husband took several ASL classes in college.
My understanding is that any unfamiliar or uncommon term must be *spelled out* in ASL including given names which is why most deaf people fluent in ASL give themselves a nickname in ASL. (A sign they use to identify themselves)
You can spell words out in French, English Japanese or Swahilli, but there will be no understanding until the new term is defined in the native language of the audience, regardless of whether they can actually hear the spoken word or not.
Because all those names and technical terms and unfamiliar words must be spelled out visually in ASL, it is impossible to do so quickly enough for a technical or college lecture,
Your friend didn't become a lawyer through an ASL interpreter. He/She did it by reading and writing advanced English.
Isab at March 12, 2017 3:09 PM
Isab: My understanding is that any unfamiliar or uncommon term must be *spelled out* in ASL including given names which is why most deaf people fluent in ASL give themselves a nickname in ASL. (A sign they use to identify themselves.)
Yes, this is true. They also give their friends a "sign name" to speed up conversation. (Among the group of friends I mentioned in my earlier comment, mine was the ASL symbol for "breeze.")
However, I already agreed with you that technology might make ASL redundant in the classroom. It's still going to be the dominant form of language among deaf people socially, so it won't go the way of Sanskrit unless deafness, hereditary or otherwise, disappears from the earth altogether (i.e., not for a very long time). People aren't going to want to sit down and text to each other over the dinner table, especially since ASL often incorporates facial expressions that further emotional, human connection.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 3:42 PM
Conan:
Then if I may be so blunt, you don't know ASL. At all.
The rules of grammar are not the same. The questions words - who, what, when, where, why - go at the end of a question.
In English, they go at the beginning. Time adverbs go at the beginning of the sentence in ASL. They can go at the beginning of the sentence in English, but in ASL, they can go nowhere else.
Spatial relations are described much more quickly in ASL, because you place objects in front of you. If you're describing a room's furnishings, for instance, you simply plot the room in the space in front of you, and put each piece of furniture in its place.
Negation is done by signing the affirmative sentence and shaking the head as if saying "no" to negate the idea that is being signed.
Pronouns are often repeated at the end of a sentence to indicate that the signer is finished and the other person can now respond.
Yes, when you're communicating with American English speakers, you finger spell words that have no signs. However, you only need do that once. Because you can make a sign for that fingerspelled word, and it will serve as the sign for that word for the duration of the conversation.
ASL is not English. As underscored by the fact that American Sign Language more closely resembles French Sign Language than English Sign Language.
Fluent speakers in ASL do not sign every word. In fact, they can communicate even complex ideas with very few signs. Generally, the facial expressions and context confer the rest.
Patrick at March 12, 2017 5:21 PM
And one thing I forgot to mention, the passive voice doesn't exist in ASL. You couldn't say, for instance, "The President was shot."
You could only say, "The President was shot."
Which is why, when teaching English to the deaf, they sometimes have an awful time learning the passive voice.
Patrick at March 12, 2017 5:25 PM
Sorry. I meant to say, "You could only say, 'Someone shot the President.'"
Patrick at March 12, 2017 5:26 PM
" It's still going to be the dominant form of language among deaf people socially, so it won't go the way of Sanskrit unless deafness, hereditary or otherwise, disappears from the earth altogether (i.e., not for a very long time)"
Dont be too sure. Technology has pretty much killed braille. I expect ASL to go the same way.
Deaf people's need to commnicatie with the hearing world and operate in it is always going to be more important than social bonding through a face to face communication system that fewer and fewer people are going to be learning, never mind fluent in, for the obvious reasons.
The multi media technological superiority is killing a lot of niche activities and proficiencies quite quickly.
ASL seved a purpose in allowing deaf people to learn to communicate with each other in a time when that was difficult, if not impossible to do. Now a compter can take my voice and convert it to words on a screen as quickly as I can speak. I bet most deaf people under 35 communicate almost entirely by texting, as do their hearing counterparts in the same age group.
Isab at March 12, 2017 5:52 PM
Let's take another situation: the blind. Is being blind so wonderful that curing blindness would be unethical? I doubt anyone would say so. Is it only the possession of sign language that makes them an ethnic group? wow.
cc at March 12, 2017 5:58 PM
Isab: Dont be too sure. Technology has pretty much killed braille. I expect ASL to go the same way.
Braille is written language, though. No one gets an emotional connection from Braille. However, psychologically, people get a lot of value by seeing people as they are communicating with them. Text conversations do not carry the same emotional weight of verbal or visual conversations. Deaf people already do communicate with the hearing world, but ASL is almost always preferred in their own social interactions and relationships because it expresses emotion better. Perhaps some new technologies will come along, but for now, ASL absolutely has a purpose. You wouldn't marry someone -- or even be close friends with them -- if the only way you could communicate with them was through text-messaging.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 6:06 PM
Isab: I bet most deaf people under 35 communicate almost entirely by texting, as do their hearing counterparts in the same age group.
I don't think any statistics, or even observed experiences, actually back that up. People only text when they aren't sitting face-to-face. Face-to-face communication is necessary for social bonding. You can't actually bond with someone without visual, verbal, or tactile cues. In general, our modern culture's obsession with text-messaging and Internet "bonds" are creating an epidemic of emotionally stunted, lonely people.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 6:09 PM
As a Speech Language Pathologist, I was trained in SEE Signing Exact English in which each sign represents an English word and the sentence structure was English. My understanding is that ASL is a different language with its own sentence structure. In a very real sense, profoundly deaf people need to be bilingual to communicate outside the deaf community. . It is not easy to learn English when you can't hear the sounds.
I don't have a crystal ball, but my best guess is that with improved cochlear implants and eventually genetic therapies, there will be fewer and fewer deaf people. ASL and the Deaf Community could become relics of the past, studied but no longer existing in the practical sense.
Carey Haug at March 12, 2017 6:21 PM
"I don't think any statistics, or even observed experiences, actually back that up. People only text when they aren't sitting face-to-face"
You dont have any kids under 40 do you?
http://deafnetwork.com/wordpress/blog/2010/09/24/texting-transforms-deaf-community/
Isab at March 12, 2017 6:42 PM
Isab: I'm under 40, and I work in a high school. I personally hate text-messaging; I prefer people call me if that's an option. I think texting is too impersonal. As for my students, I've never seen them text when verbal communication was an option. They'll sneak a text when they can't talk in class, but once they can talk, they do.
(And it's true that some of them are addicted to social media and texting, but that's not a good thing. I've noticed that many of my students are quite emotionally immature, and I do blame social media and texting.)
As for the article you shared, the main emphasis was that texting allows deaf people to communicate with hearing people. That makes perfect sense, of course. But, like I said, the deaf people I've spoken to have all said that, when they're among people who understand ASL, they prefer it due to its wider range of expressiveness and emotional connectivity.
Jay Hall at March 12, 2017 6:56 PM
Isab: I'm under 40, and I work in a high school. I personally hate text-messaging; I prefer people call me if that's an option. I think texting is too impersonal. As for my students, I've never seen them text when verbal communication was an option. They'll sneak a text when they can't talk in class, but once they can talk, they do."
I thought so. You seem a very poor observer of your own students since I have frequently seen groups of teens talking among themselves while they simultaneously text other friends who are elsewhere.
Also,
Verbal communication is almost never an option for those born deaf, so there is a big fallacy right there.
Texting and email has released deaf teens and adults from the prison of only being able to communicate with others who use an arcane made up language that seems (like Ebonics) to be an impediment to developing real English language skills.
It has opened the world to them, and you somehow think they would rather remain in isolation in a stilted language ghetto of their deaf peer group, and immediate family members who can communicate is ASL.
Isab at March 12, 2017 8:35 PM
Isab,
Maybe I'm thick. Why hasn't reading and writing in English, or any language, not been open to the deaf? I don't see how texting or email has changed anything. The ability to write and read English has been open to the deaf for our lifetimes. Yes, now it can be done over a network. That has changed nothing except maybe the expansion of folks due to the network.
causticf at March 12, 2017 9:44 PM
Isab: "You seem a very poor observer of your own students since I have frequently seen groups of teens talking among themselves while they simultaneously text other friends who are elsewhere."
I work full time with adolescents, and my observation is very similar to Jay's and yours.
When there are two or more kids together they chatter continuously, often more than one talking at a time. Sometimes a chatty one will pair off with a quiet one, and then only one talks. They use the full range of expressiveness, including vocal intonation, facial expressions, physical gestures and postures, and touching; and their vocabulary and grammar seem to be as good as they want them to be and adaptable to their audience and circumstances. If they have their cell phones some of them will also be texting or emailing or whatever it is they're doing. So it seems that the texting and email doesn't replace direct verbal communication, it's in addition to it. It brings people who aren't physically present into the conversation.
When we admit kids to the inpatient unit we take their cell phones. When we tell them why they can't have it (phones with cameras are forbidden, even for staff, due to confidentiality laws; internet access is not allowed during their stay; phones are valuable and easily damaged or stolen; someone might sneak it and look at their pics and messages) rarely do any object to handing over. Some of them ask what we're going to do with it, and when we assure them that we're not going to snoop in it or hand it over to their parents (and we won't) and will keep it in a safe place (we will) they're satisfied (kids are wonderfully trusting of adults; often too trusting)
During my admission assessments I always find out whether a kid can read and write well enough to understand the printed materials we use in our program. I seldom find one who can't, though many of them can't read or write cursive, which is sad (I encounter more patients in the adult units who can't read or write, most in their late 30's to late 50's) One way to find out quickly if they can read is to hand them a copy of the hospital's policy on cell phones and electronic devices. Many of the kids, when they're not able to socialize with their peers, spend a lot of their free time reading. Most of them have family members bring books, school books and Bibles for them.
One difference I see between the interactions of kids when I was an adolescent and the interactions of adolescents today is that when I was a kid our interactions were limited to people physically in our presence and kids today can include people anywhere in the world.
Ken R at March 12, 2017 10:55 PM
A few years after I graduated college, the deaf literature (DLit) movement really hit its stride... Beginning, for whatever reason, with murder mysteries. Dean Wesrey's masterwork Unnggpfnnnn in the Boardroom had barely cracked the New York Times Bestseller list in July '82, but its themes of disregarded obloquy and failed gesture smoldered in the readers imaginations.
1985's Parcifal Glimpilfgmm by Bobson Dugnutt was the work that brought DLit to the forefront of public consciousness, even though Zemeckis' big-screen adaptation was a critical & box-office disappointment. (The unlistenable soundtrack album is regarded as harbinger of the music industry's collapse a decade later.)
I could go on like this, but are you people fuckin' kidding me?
"Deaf culture"?
Crid at March 12, 2017 11:05 PM
Hey, Jay Hall: Google exists!
Crid at March 12, 2017 11:07 PM
Isab,
Maybe I'm thick. Why hasn't reading and writing in English, or any language, not been open to the deaf? I don't see how texting or email has changed anything. The ability to write and read English has been open to the deaf for our lifetimes. Yes, now it can be done over a network. That has changed nothing except maybe the expansion of folks due to the network.
causticf at March 12, 2017 9:44 PM
You arent thick. I just think you seriously underestimate the percentage of language development directly acuqired through your ears.
I had to take some courses in college to get a teaching certificate in history a long time ago. Back in the day before any studies that painted the disabled as anything less than superior to non disabled people, were rigorously suppressed, our teacher told us that seventy to eighty percent of information about language and academic development in language came through our hearing. Teaching a profoundly deaf person to read, write and understand the English Language is a bit like teaching the blind to paint landscapes. Most of what you need to make sense of it, just isn't getting into your brain.
Educators believed at one time that ASL actually inhibited students from learning proper English. When sign language became central to the SJW deaf indentity, those people shut the hell up.
Most of what is left on the internet on the subject is Gallaudet propaganda.
Isab at March 13, 2017 12:55 AM
The adolescents I work with have severe PTSD, major depression, severe anxiety disorders; some have psychotic symptoms, some bipolar disorder.
Once in a while, along with all of that, a kid on my unit is deaf. When there's no sign language interpreter I give them white paper and three or four colors of Sharpie pens to tell me what they want to say. They're very creative at expressing their emotions with different colors, and different sizes or style of printing; they draw simple pictures, or little emoticons of hearts (or broken hearts) or happy or sad or angry expressions or tears around their words, just like other adolescents do. I don't know why but some of the deaf kids use their name instead of first person pronouns (e.g. "Sally" or "Tony" instead of I, me, we, my) Along with their written message they use exaggerated facial expressions, gestures and postures to emphasize or get their message across.
One night a skinny little 14-year-old deaf girl came stomping out of her room with her arms down at her sides and her fists clenched, and gestured to me that she wanted a pen and paper, which I got for her. She wrote, "Sally always feel SO SAD!!" and a little sad face emoticon with tears. She made a sad face with a frown. I wrote, "I'm sorry you feel so sad. What's wrong?" She wrote, "Meds dont work!", made a pouty face and crossed her arms across her chest. I wrote, "Is there something I can do to help you feel better?" What she told me is sometimes her blood sugar goes too low and makes her feel more depressed and angry. What she wanted was some red Jolly Ranchers to keep in her pocket for when she felt hypoglycemic. She wrote in bold caps, "SALLY WANT 4 [crossed out the 4] 5 RED JOLLY RANCHERS IN POCKET!!" and an angry face emoticon. "Red Jolly Ranchers" was in red, the rest in blue. When she handed me the paper she made a stern face, put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot - i.e. she wasn't just asking for them, she was demanding them.
She could have told me what she wanted using only text, but without the face-to-face interaction, the expressive writing, the facial expressions, gestures and postures, and stamping her foot, all of her emotion and persuasiveness would have been lost. I coached her a bit, and the next morning she talked to her doctor and got an order for "1 red Jolly Rancher 5X/day PRN sadness, may keep 1 in pocket" (the doctor's order requires the hospital and nurses to do it; the girl had asked previously and the nurses just blew her off)
I think being deaf would definitely hinder someone's ability to learn and use language (the way words are written has a strong relationship to how they sound when spoken) I think deaf people must benefit greatly from text and email and technology. But I don't think technology will replace sign language in face-to-face communication between deaf people, any more than it will replace speech between hearing people.
Ken R at March 13, 2017 2:17 AM
Isab: I thought so. You seem a very poor observer of your own students since I have frequently seen groups of teens talking among themselves while they simultaneously text other friends who are elsewhere.
You're undermining your own argument, though. You said that texting would replace talking or that it would replace ASL. In both the examples you cited, it's merely bolstering it. That's a big difference. Texting allows deaf people to more easily communicate with hearing people who don't know ASL, and it allows everyone, deaf or hearing, to bring in people who aren't currently present, but it doesn't replace anything. It just expands the possibilities. (Ken R demonstrated this excellently.)
Like I said, do you honestly think a deaf person is going to marry a hearing person who doesn't know ASL? Do you think people are going to spend their entire, 24/7 relationships texting back-and-forth?
Isab: It has opened the world to them, and you somehow think they would rather remain in isolation in a stilted language ghetto of their deaf peer group, and immediate family members who can communicate is ASL.
Limiting communication to texting and e-mail, which require technology that isn't always present, would similarly limit them. I'm not saying that texting and e-mail aren't wonderful things for deaf people. They obviously are. I'm just saying that their existence won't destroy ASL among deaf people in the same way that they didn't destroy verbal communication for hearing people. They supplement; they don't supplant.
Jay Hall at March 13, 2017 5:14 AM
Like, honest question, Isab, do you think a person can form a deep, meaningful, and emotional bond just through written communication? I don't think that's possible. Sure, some wacko might think she's fallen in love with a prison inmate through letters, but most people require some form of expressive language. The ASL-less future you're imagining makes me think of two deaf people texting their vows to each other. That's just not going to happen.
Texting an e-mail open up work and education opportunities, but they won't be the foundation of social bonding because no one wants to have friends that they can only text with. (Those people who say that all their friends are online are generally losers.)
Jay Hall at March 13, 2017 5:29 AM
Ken R: I think being deaf would definitely hinder someone's ability to learn and use language (the way words are written has a strong relationship to how they sound when spoken) I think deaf people must benefit greatly from text and email and technology. But I don't think technology will replace sign language in face-to-face communication between deaf people, any more than it will replace speech between hearing people.
Yes. These are my thoughts exactly. Technology can open new doors, but it will never replace the human element. No one makes meaningful bonds through text-messaging alone. The form drives the content, and the form typically allows for only shallow topics (which is why so many people who live on social media complain about having shallow relationships). Plus, it's not like you can take your cell phone everywhere. ASL-only might limit one's world, but so would texting only.
Jay Hall at March 13, 2017 5:56 AM
You know what "cultural genocide" is?
There's no such thing. It's merely inflammatory language. It's like when Amy and her squadron of lonely little men describe circumcision as "unnecessary surgery."
How come shallow people always assume the rest of the world can, through a schoolgirl's emotional manipulation, be made to care about such things?
Crid at March 13, 2017 6:51 AM
"Like, honest question, Isab, do you think a person can form a deep, meaningful, and emotional bond just through written communication?"\
In the past, it happened all the time. After all, it's only been about a century that we've had telephones. Prior to that, written language was the only means available of communicating with someone distant.
"Why hasn't reading and writing in English, or any language, not been open to the deaf? "
Maybe because ASL is a logographic language? Those are vocabulary-limiting, compared to languages that employ an alphabet, and are rapidly getting left behind as technology progresses. (The Japanese have known this for a while, which is why they have developed various forms of kana -- alphabetic representations as an alternative to the traditional kanji glyphic characters.)
Cousin Dave at March 13, 2017 7:37 AM
No, you may not. At all.
In my post I already admitted I don't know ASL, hence the "as far as I know" hedge. And shortly after that, Jay Hall brought up grammar in ASL and its differences and separate development from American English, clearing up some misconceptions.
As for repeating or saying a word at the end of a communication to indicate the communication is complete and the other party is now free to respond, that's been radio etiquette for years (on the amateur and the professional bands) and comes from wire telegraphy. It's not a cultural marker, it's a mechanism to enable efficient and clear communication.
Now, if ASL is a different language, entitled to be the heart of a separate and distinct culture unrelated to American culture in general; and is totally unrelated to American English, how is it that deaf Americans use American English to communicate in written form? There is no written form of ASL. It's not as separate as it wants to be.
According to LiveScience, "Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts."
I'm still not quite seeing "deaf culture" as separate and unique from American culture. It has a spoken language of its own, but is reliant on American culture in general for the rest of the usual cultural markers. Deaf culture is a sub-set of the culture to which the deaf people belong, e.g., American culture, French culture, etc. It's not a bad thing to be a subculture.
Just like Africa-Americans no longer fit into African culture and are culturally Americans (ditto for Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, and other hyphenated Americans longing for the auld sod), deaf Americans are still Americans, in outlook, attitude, habits, clothing - all the cultural markers that the world will look at and use to conclude that they are Americans.
Conan the Grammarian at March 13, 2017 8:07 AM
Slightly OT, but if anyone finds it useful...
"Audiobooks - pros and cons" a thread I started:
NPR had a piece on this ("On Point with Tom Ashbrook"), last November.
What I found interesting was that there were two blind callers who had VERY different opinions on audiobooks - the negative caller was someone who went blind well after age ten, IIRC, so he had clear memories of reading as a sighted person. Of course, he did say that audiobooks were "better than nothing," but he still firmly said that listening wasn't as good.
From another article:
"Learning to read is certainly important, no one is saying that it isn’t, but in some cases, listening to the story can encourage students to read more, something high school English teacher Michael Godsey discovered using podcast audio with transcripts. And let’s not forget the role of speaking in the writing of books. Numerous classics, including the 'Iliad,' were based on the spoken word, and some authors dictated their stories."
lenona at March 13, 2017 1:29 PM
Isab: In the past, it happened all the time. After all, it's only been about a century that we've had telephones. Prior to that, written language was the only means available of communicating with someone distant.
That's an interesting point, but I'm not sure it's completely relevant. No one can deny that the art of letter-writing has disappeared. Obviously, text-messaging is great for communicating with someone who isn't present, but I was talking about face-to-face interactions. When two friends meet for coffee, I just can't imagine them texting with each other if they both know ASL. I certainly can't imagine a deaf married couple communicating solely through text-messaging when they're in their home. Cell phones break. They get lost. Their batteries die. Sometimes your service goes down, and you can't find a pen around. Sometimes you get eye strain from staring at a screen for too long. When you're sitting on the couch with your husband or wife, do you really want to look at a phone instead of his or her face?
My predication is that the rise of texting technology will lead to fewer hearing people learning ASL, and it will also lead to the eventual elimination of interpreting as a necessary job. I believe deaf people will use texting to open up more friendships with hearing people, and it will obviously open up more work and educational opportunities. However, I believe ASL will still be fundamental to social and romantic relationships among deaf people. No one is going to want to rely on a cell phone during a romantic tryst, a picnic in the park, or a hike in the woods with friends.
Katakana didn't eliminate kanji. Texting won't eliminate ASL. It will just change when and how it is used. Of course, who knows what the future holds? No one can see the future.
Jay Hall at March 13, 2017 1:48 PM
> No one can see the future.
Some can't even see the present, Jay... Even though Google exists!!!!!
Crid at March 13, 2017 3:02 PM
"Katakana didn't eliminate kanji. Texting won't eliminate ASL. It will just change when and how it is used."
Some people's predictions about the future are better than others.
Generally those people have a good knowledge of the past and the present.
I can see you know as little about Japanese as you do ASL, and language history in general, or you wouldn't make such a simplistic, and incorrect analogy.
Katakana isnt what you think it is. I suggest you try @Google
Isab at March 13, 2017 3:16 PM
Isab, of course it's not a perfect analogy, and I didn't claim to know much about it. I was using your point that it was developed in order to provide the Japanese alphabetic representations as an alternative to the traditional kanji glyphic characters. An alternative, not a replacement. But you're arguing that text-messaging will replace ASL as opposed to being an alternative.
But you still haven't responded to my main point. Please answer this question: Do you think a deaf married couple is going to exclusively rely on text-messaging to communicate? You still haven't answered that question. You have a tendency to nitpick small flaws in an argument, which I'll happily admit are there, instead of grappling with the main point. You're the one arguing that text-messaging will eliminate ASL entirely. You've presented no evidence to support that. Even the article you posted only shows that deaf people are using texting in addition to, not in replacement of, ASL.
Jay Hall at March 13, 2017 3:29 PM
It would also be nice if you responded to Ken R, since he said pretty much what I was trying to say, although I think he said it better than I did.
Jay Hall at March 13, 2017 3:35 PM
There is one final point. It should be obvious, but no one's made it yet. Like cochlear implants, if the child is deaf, the child doesn't make the decision to have his hearing restored. His parents make it for him.
So, if there are cures for deafness, the parents are the ones who are going to be making the decisions. Quite possibly, the law will requite it. There's no sense in telling the deaf that they should stay deaf for the sake of "deaf culture," since the deaf people to get these cures will probably be at an age when they are too young to even voice a preference, or are even aware that they are different.
As for deaf culture, I would say it's a culture, if for no other reason, the language barrier prevents the deaf from interacting freely with the hearing.
It can be terribly frustrating for someone who cannot hear to try to communicate with someone who doesn't know ASL. Deafness tends to isolate them from the hearing community, and vice versa. Most hearing people can't speak ASL.
So, you can insist that deaf culture is no culture. But they are isolated from the hearing.
Conan, I would suggest you learn a little bit more about how deaf people do interact. This statement isn't nearly as true as you think it is.
No, their outlooks and attitudes are quite different. For instance, as visually-oriented people, they see nothing wrong with drawing attention to physical attributes in a way that hearing people would consider uncouth.
For instance, a deaf woman I know named Patty had a name-sign that her friends had given to her. Make the sign for the letter P with each hand and outline the shape a large pair of women's breasts while holding the P sign with both hands.
As it happens, Patty was a very topheavy woman. When a hearing friend of hers expressed shock that they would use the size of her breasts as a name sign, Patty simply shrugged, and signed, That's fine. I do have large breasts."
To us, that would be grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit if done in the workplace. To them, it's just what they do.
So, no, their attitudes, outlook and habits are actually quite different. Even the way they communicate with each other is different. Obviously, when you're signing, it's important to maintain eye contact. Because hearing is an omnidirectional ability, hearing people tend to break eye contact. Among the hearing, we consider maintaining constant eye contact to be threatening. To the deaf, it's the only way. Breaking eye contact is considered rude, because it's suggesting that you're no longer listening.
I asked my deaf friends not to give me a visual name-sign, so my name sign is simply taking the sign for the letter P, touch the index finger of the P sign to the temple, then flick the wrist outward. They gave me the sign for "intelligent" initialized with the P sign.
I got to admit, I like my name-sign.
Patrick at March 13, 2017 4:08 PM
So, you're saying that a deaf American traveling overseas won't stand out to everyone as an American? 'cause I'd bet he would (and that was my point); mostly because of the cultural markers he carries with him as an American.
Conan the Grammarian at March 13, 2017 7:18 PM
I understand what you're saying. Maybe you could try to hear what I'm saying?
I'm simply pointing out that you're assuming too much. You're giving me the impression that you don't spend a lot of time with deaf people or have gotten to know some of them.
Clothing, perhaps, but outlook, attitude and habits? Hardly.
Culture or subculture, however you want to describe it, they definitely have a society of sorts that moves quite differently from ours. And one that you would feel quite lost within, and not merely because of the language barrier. They have their own little set of entertainment and performance art that an outsider generally doesn't appreciate.
But these parameters you describe would need to be more laid out. Outlook? How? In what ways?
They definitely see hearing culture as something apart from them.
I'm just trying to say that you could stand to learn a little more about them before you make such sweeping generalizations. And I'm actually trying to be nice about it.
Patrick at March 14, 2017 11:01 AM
(As a Catholic, though, I'm against gene therapy.)
Why? As a church Catholics are for raping children and didn't admit the Earth revolves around the sun until the 1950s
lujlp at March 14, 2017 11:40 AM
"There's nothing wrong with getting cochlear implants. (As a Catholic, though, I'm against gene therapy.)"
Wow. Geneticists are advancing in this frontier rapidly, although they themselves will argue about when they will reach the ability to manipulate living tissue at will. You would really turn down an injection to correct cancer, spinal deterioration, diabetes, Alzheimer's?
"Like, honest question, Isab, do you think a person can form a deep, meaningful, and emotional bond just through written communication? I don't think that's possible."
I'll take that bet. Not only has it been explained that this exact thing has been noted many times in the past, I am quite sure that if he was motivated to do so, Crid could make you laugh or weep at will, regardless of your desires; you would discover things, and relationships between things - and your place in the world would be illustrated in ways you cannot suspect right now. He's idling here.
Radwaste at March 14, 2017 1:49 PM
Redwaste: Good question. I should have been more clear. I'm against germ-line therapy, not somatic cell therapy. I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that any attempt to eradicate hereditary deafness would involve germ-line therapy.
Jay Hall at March 14, 2017 6:43 PM
Jay again, why does the fact that your a catholic qualify you as being against germline therapy?
lujlp at March 14, 2017 8:49 PM
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