Talk:Deaf culture
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This material was in the article:
All Deaf communities speak a sign language. In some places, such as Marthas Vineyard, groups of deaf people without a language have invented a sign language spontaneously. Deaf people write in a spoken language, not in an orthography of their sign language (although writing systems have been developed for some sign languages). Various degrees of speaking and lip reading ability are also found among Deaf people, for interacting with hearing people who do not understand sign language.
After moving much material around in my ordering and expansion of what was there, this was left over and I am not sure where to put it or if it even belongs on this page. I could just be overly tired since I have moved a lot of stuff around in one day. In any case, I did not want to just dump it so I placed it here for now. Qaz 02:14, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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This is an excellent site fir american sign language
http://where.com/scott.net/asl/abc.html --205.213.111.51 17:20, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)deeznuts
"Is the Deaf community a real culture?" section
"Sociologists, who are the ones we charge with settling such questions, have a list of properties that a group of people must possess in order to be considered a culture. For example, a prison population would not be considered a culture in the sociological sense because the people interred are not there of their own free will. The Deaf community has all of the attributes a group of people need: a shared language, attitudes and beliefs in common, literature, art, volunteer associations, a tendency to marry within the group, etc., in order to be considered a true culture.Therefore, it is not an instance of grandiosity or even a slight exaggeration to use the phrase Deaf culture."
I'm not challenging the conclusion, but it needs to be presented in a more balanced way. The conclusion made here is obviously not obvious to everyone, or there would be no need to explain this. Who are "sociologists"? Why were they studying this in the first place (i.e. why wasn't the conclusion immediately obvious)? Or have there been studies or scholarly publications of some sort? I assume so, but this paragraph doesn't tell me. Culture might be a good place to start, but I don't know where this specific information came from. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 03:20, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have doubts that a prison population is not considered a culture. I don't know why free will would be necessary for a population to be a culture. Tuf-Kat 05:40, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with the others who have expressed with concern with this section. The list of properties should, IMO, be introduced first and, if this really is an accepted list, then it should also exist in the culture article (I couldn't find it there). The conclusion that there is no prison culture, but there is Deaf culture, also seems strange to me since I thought it was not out of free will that most people are born Deaf; the conclusion may be valid, but a few steps need to be added to get us there. -- Oarih 04:08, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Ditto, Oarih. Prisons most certainly have cultures of their own. I'll devise a diffent explanation using better know sub-cultures to put deaf culture in its rightful context. Ray Foster 04:45, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It's not an issue of free will
You're using the wrong group to make the comparison. There are only a couple hundred books and scholarly essay, studies and articles that have defined why deafness is a culture. It's because it is a LANGUAGE. Culture is bound to it's language and language to its culture. The entire argument for deafness as a culture is based on it's striking similarities and pararalles to Minority Language Groups. Look around the United States. In California we have Iranian, Hmong, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and on and on. There is a "Chinatown" or "Koreatown" or Jewish ghetto or Italian ghetto in most large cities. These exist because the people speak a common language, yet they are all minority languages in the United States. American Sign Language happens to be the most used indigenous language used in the United States, more than Navajo, Cherokee or any of the major native American tribes. It's about language. Here's the criteria:
1. Language, 2. History, 3. Social Organizations and mores, 4. A political agenda and 5. A unique dignity.
The deaf have all of these; a language that binds them all, for their entire lives. They have a shared history of struggle.
And if you'll look at your own page you'll see that it wasn't a sociologist who identified this culture. It was a linguist, William Skokie. As every linguist knows, you don't have a natual language without having a culture that is bound to it. After Slokie came Klima & Bellugi, psycholinguist Harlan Lane, and many many more. It was the people who study language that put it all together and if you'll take note, there is a specific category on Wikipedia where this discussion of deaf culture most logically fits: Minority Language Groups. Ray Foster
Disturbing Content.
I've made extensive updates and changes on this page because it was replete with statement that just left questions hanging in the air. In fact, I found that as I was editing the page and tactfully attempting to "add-to" statements that were pregnant with implied horrors on deaf cultural views, it became necessary to jump through hoops to make coherent and put into rational perspective the original text.
I'll cite a couple of examples to give you and idea of the problems I encountered:
1. (Original): Culturally deaf people (sometimes called the capital D deaf) do not look on deafness as a disability.
Yes. But WHY? The idea is posed but left unaddressed. I answered the question.
2. (Original): As an example of how thouroughly deafness is seen as a positive attribute, many Deaf individuals wish for their children to be born deaf.
Yes. But (again) WHY? This statement was just left hanging.
3. (This one gave me a nice chuckle) For example, a prison population would not be considered a culture in the sociological sense because the people ""interred"" are not there of their own free will.
Dead convicts, as a group usually don't meet the definition of a culture.
4. (Original): In hearing cultures a similar expectation is made of foreigners who are expected to learn the language of the land they have emigrated to if they expect to successfully assimilate into the culture.
I found this statement extremely biased and troubling, if not threatning. It suggests that foreigners who speak and hear are being compared to people who have a several thousand year history of being unable, even under the greatest effort, to acquire the language of their native country. This is a very old and ugly story that was well-documented by Harlan Lane. In France, indeed all of Europe and in the Americas there was a long period of frantic Assimilation terror. It is absurd on it's face to suggest the deaf are some kind of threat to nation-building because they use a different language than the majority culture. This comparison sets up the deaf as some sinister "foreign" entity bent on infiltrating and destorying their own homeland. What part of "deaf" does this insinuation not understand? We are talking about a group whose gentleness is unquestioned.
5. I'd like to know who is editing this page and inserting emphatic statements in mid sentence like "radically alters one's perspective" and this one: "Even hearing persons who are members of the Deaf community are expected to know about and even exhibit some of the adaptations deafness induces in an individual."
If you are going to say someone is expected to do a certain thing, why don't you just go ahead and tell us what it is that must be done rather than leave it hanging there like some gruesome mystery. This makes the deaf sound like some rigid and extreme cult or political movement.
And what is this? "Depending primarily on one's eyes instead of ears for interaction with the surrounding world radically alters one's perspective and expectations about functioning in the world."
What on earth are you talking about; "altered perspective about function"? The deaf perspective isn't altered? That's the fantasy (or horror) of hearing people when they contumplate losing their hearing. There perspective would be radically altered. But the deaf have but one perspective. Since they can't become "un-deaf" there perspective of the world doesn't alter. It remains a singularly unchanging view. There is a deaf parallel to this fear. Most deaf people feel so comfortable with their deafness, they fear becoming hearing for the same reason hearing people fear becoming deaf: it alters the very comfortable view one has engrained in one's brain. The only other thing I can think of, speaking as a deaf person (which I am) is that the threat of isolation or the fact of isolation can radically alter a deaf person's view of how they will function. When you are the only deaf person in a family, isolation and frustration is an everyday emotional beating you endure. Imagine feeling that way then going off to a school for the deaf where you can understand people. But then you are faced with having to return home on holiday or when the school term is over to people how don't sign and don't care to learn how. Add to this that you will immediately be saddled with all burdens of clear communication when you get home because, hey, you're supposed to be learning how to speak and lip-read like they show actors doing on television. Believe me. You'll cry when you see your father's car pulling up in front of school to take you back to that awful experence. It will warp you.
This is really pretty shocking editing I've discovered here. I can only conclude that any edit placed on this page is deliberate. I must admit, many things I've found here are profoundly disturbing. I will continue as a contributor but at this point I'm pretty devestated at the tone of much of this language. I'll sleep on it, but I think this page needs an extreme makeover along the order of starting at the first word at the top of the page and erasing everything down to the last word at the bottom.
I rest my case. Ray Foster 11:08, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)