Check out the book "Deaf in America, Voices from a Culture." Meet the deadlines below by READING and posting to the blog. For each blog post please include 2 quotes and a page number. Read what others have said. Your entry in that blog shows me you read that chapter. BONUS: Comment / Post to 7 of the 8!
Many young deaf people don't realize they are any different from the world around them and to them Deafness is normal. There are many different ways that people identify themselves for example, you can be hearing, a little hard of hearing, very hard of hearing, deaf and Deaf."In ASL, as in English, HARD-OF-HEARING represents a deviation of some kind"(41). There are many different organizations for the Deaf including National Association of the Deaf(NAD), Self-help for the Hard of Hearing (SHHH). Deaf people have many resources in their communities and someone is always there to help.
ReplyDeleteSorry I hit send before I was done! I don't understand the difference between HEARING and THINK-HEARING I understand that THINK-HEARING "goes beyond ORAL to include other unacceptable choices such as voicing opposition to ASL" (54). I don't understand what the difference between HEARING, THINK-HEARING and VERY HARD of HEARING.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter showed me a very interesting point of view that I had never realized existed. I saw the distinction between VERY HARD-OF-HEARING and A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING as a spectrum. This concept was echoed by the authors. They observed that "within this world of meaning - compared to that of English and the world of others - there is a different alignment, toward a different center" (42). Of course in our generation, and being hearing in a hearing world, we never even thought there would be a different point of view. Also, depending of your knowledge of Deaf culture, we only have a few labels for hearing people and Deafies. I never knew that labels with seemingly indistinguishable differences made such a difference in the Deaf community. "ORAL recalls many extreme stereotypes; our friends gave us two: MIND RICH and ALWAYS PLAN...[rich family means embracing oralism and oral Deafies that try to pass as hearing]" (51-52). They seem almost inferior with those labels. Deaf people really detest anything having to do with oralism. Maybe it has to do with their history of being oppressed with it. Again, as this chapter illustrated, we, as hearing in a hearing world, would never even consider it.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this chapter. It reminded me about the distinctions between “Deaf” and “deaf”. I remember before I took ASL, I would read about Deafness and see the capitalizations varying. I always assumed it was an error on the part of the author, but now that I have been taught by my teacher about the difference (and have been refreshed by this book,) I know the difference! Something from this chapter that really stood out to me was the following quote, “…signs from ASL are often thought to be direct representations of spoken words, but in fact they are independent of English” (40). Most of the general public is completely unaware of this, and I admit even I forget this sometimes! When I first started studying the language, I thought of ASL as an extension of English, but slowly realized it is as much its own language as German is. The section about the differences between “LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING” and “VERY HARD-OF-HEARING” made me think of all of the translation errors that must occur—both with those two labels specifically, and with the language as a whole. Another part of this book that stood out to me was the section in which the authors discussed the book being, “…only about the ‘hardworking, honest deaf-person” (42). This was very surprising to me in two ways. The first way is that picking and choosing which section of a population to show to the outside world seems unfair. There are honest and dishonest people all over the globe, both Hearing and Deaf. Secondly, it seems discriminatory towards members of their community! However, I see the author’s point-to not label yourself as “disabled” socially, yet to reap the full benefits of being labeled “disabled” legally seems manipulative. I can understand why a person (or group) would want to distance themselves from that sort of behavior. The section on begging seemed particularly harsh to me. I think if someone has a financial need to beg, it shouldn’t matter if it hurts the pride of others in your social group. The story about the Hearing child of Deaf parents wanting to participate in sports reminded me of learning about CODAs and how they can often feel stuck between two worlds. Finally, the book spoke about the word “ORAL” serving as an insult, and this reminded me of learning about schooling strategies for teaching Deaf children, and how moralists were painted in a villainous light.
ReplyDeleteI though this chapter was very interesting, because it talked about how Deaf people talked and thought about themselves. One quote that I found interesting is "Although signs and their translations may have overlapping meanings, signs are not simply codes for English words"(40). This is something that is very easy to forget but important to remember when thinking about ASL. Another idea in this chapter was about the meanings behind the signs DEAF, VERY HARD-OF-HEARING, and A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING. The chapter also discussed the relationship between the Deaf community and the label of being disabled: "Knowing well the special benefits, economic and otherwise, of calling themselves disabled, Deaf people have a history, albeit an uneasy on, of alignment with other disabled groups"(44). This chapter also explores the attributes that Deaf towards various parts of the Deaf community both positive and negative, and I was surprised by some of the negativity towards parts of the community that seemed extreme without explanation, but was understandable with background information about their history.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter focused on Deaf people and different categorizations of Deaf people. To me, I found it very interesting that Deaf people would refer to someone who had profound hearing loss as being A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING while referring to someone with slight hearing loss as being VERY-HARD-OF-HEARING. However, the book explained it perfectly, saying, “A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING is a small deviation from DEAF, and thus is used for someone who is only slightly hearing. VERY HARD-OF-HEARING is someone who departs from the center greatly, thus someone who can hear quite well” (41). It makes sense that the Deaf would categorize each other based upon how close or far from deafness you are, as deafness is what the culture as a whole knows best. In hearing culture, we (the hearing) are the center of everything grammatically, so why can’t in Deaf culture the Deaf be the center of everything grammatically as well? This chapter also talked greatly about different categorizations of Deaf and the amount of education in English a Deaf person may have. One of these categories that really struck me was the term “oral failure”, which is “as term used for those who are products of oppressive educational programs”(52), that is, they are forced into educational programs that force them to speak orally, and they cannot perform in such a program. This to me seems really sad, as it seems unreasonable to expect a person to be able to talk and perform when they cannot hear or much less understand the language being thrown at them. However, the book does describe these people as being “redeemed” by finding sign language later in life and are able to succeed greatly in their education through the manual approach.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter focused on Deaf people and different categorizations of Deaf people. To me, I found it very interesting that Deaf people would refer to someone who had profound hearing loss as being A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING while referring to someone with slight hearing loss as being VERY-HARD-OF-HEARING. However, the book explained it perfectly, saying, “A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING is a small deviation from DEAF, and thus is used for someone who is only slightly hearing. VERY HARD-OF-HEARING is someone who departs from the center greatly, thus someone who can hear quite well” (41). It makes sense that the Deaf would categorize each other based upon how close or far from deafness you are, as deafness is what the culture as a whole knows best. In hearing culture, we (the hearing) are the center of everything grammatically, so why can’t in Deaf culture the Deaf be the center of everything grammatically as well? This chapter also talked greatly about different categorizations of Deaf and the amount of education in English a Deaf person may have. One of these categories that really struck me was the term “oral failure”, which is “as term used for those who are products of oppressive educational programs”(52), that is, they are forced into educational programs that force them to speak orally, and they cannot perform in such a program. This to me seems really sad, as it seems unreasonable to expect a person to be able to talk and perform when they cannot hear or much less understand the language being thrown at them. However, the book does describe these people as being “redeemed” by finding sign language later in life and are able to succeed greatly in their education through the manual approach.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter captured a very unique perspective that I was not aware of in the Deaf culture. As Christy Anne stated above, I also found it interesting that the Deaf refer to others with a large amount of hearing loss as A-LITTLE-HARD-OF-HEARING, but that was simply because the Deaf think of themselves as the center, like hearing people think of themselves as the center. The people who were a little hard of hearing only slightly differed from the Deaf people because they had just a little more hearing than them. Another interesting thought is one that the authors stated in relation to this common misconception for Deaf people, "But if they were mistakes, we wondered, why did so many Deaf people, including those fluent in English, use them in this way" (40)? This is a great example of how culture and traditions start, and how some of the ASL traditions began. I could parallel the Deaf culture to the hearing culture in America because it talked about beggars saying, "Peddlers still make their rounds today, but popular wisdom has it that they are 'heavily into drugs'" (45). I could relate this to the hearing culture because we have a similar view on hearing beggars.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to what everyone else has said, the thing that I got out of this chapter was the difference between A-LITTLE-HARD-OF-HEARING and VERY HARD-OF-HEARING. "A-LITTLE-HARD-OF-HEARING is a small deviation from DEAF, and thus is used for someone who is only slightly hearing. VERY HARD-OF-HEARING is someone who departs from the center greatly, thus someone who can hear quite well" (41). When i hear these terms I think of them the exact opposite. But I can see now that that is from a hearing perspective because my whole life revolves around hearing. If I look at it from the other perspective, the deaf perspective, it makes sense. Being deaf is what they revolve around and what they understand is based on that. This chapter also touched on the ideas of labels, which I had not thought much of. Our teacher has always taught us that deaf people do not like being referred to as "disabled" it is disrespectful. "'Disabled' is a label that historically has not belonged to Deaf people. It suggests political self-representations and goals unfamiliar to the group" (44). It makes sense to me that they would not want to be considered disabled. They are fully able to do everything. When I think of disabled, I think of a leg injury or something that fully stops you from being able to do stuff. But with interpreters and other accommodations, deaf people are fully able, therefore should not be coined as disabled.
ReplyDeleteI thought the quote "Real HARD-OF-HEARING people walk a thin line between being Deaf people who can be like hearing people and Deaf people who are too much like hearing people" (50) was interesting. I feel like in the hearing community, hearing different names to describe Deaf people can be seen as inconsiderate or rude, because hearing people don't know much about the Deaf community. However, the Deaf community use these different labels to show the range of hearing someone has. It's not rude at all. "Deaf people work around different assumptions about deafness and hearing from those of hearing people" (54). Mentioned in earlier chapters, the Deaf community has been oppressed mostly because of the hearing community and the thoughts and labels that are put upon Deaf people. Their struggles are what makes them who they are and unlike the hearing world, the Deaf world is more tightly held together. Because of this, names applied to one another aren't harmful, they describe relationships among each other.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter dove into the different labels in Deaf culture, and their implications towards a person and their way of thinking. The authors had noticed some discrepancies in the ways people described and labeled others, and found it depended on what point of view they took on and what circumstancesthey were in: "Within this world of meaning - compared to that of English and the world of others - there is a different alignment, towards a different center" (42). Deaf people see the world in such a different way, a perspective no hearing person will ever fully understand. Reading this chapter gave some insight into how the stereotypes and labels used in Deaf culture portray ther person thay are describing. In hearing culture, we sometimes see "labels" and "stereotypes" as confining and a rude misrepresentation of who a person is; in Deaf culture, however, it helps them to know what kind of person they are dealing with in relation to themselves and their circumstances: "Names applied to one another are labels that define relationships" (55). The Deaf culture uses these labels to find the "different center" they are starting from with a person, and judge their ideas, beliefs, and circumstances to find where they are in relation to that person. I find this concept so interesting, and realize we use a similar process in the hearing culture; the difference in the hearing culture is that it seems to be an unspoken system, where one gauges their relationship with another through their own observations, and treats the perso a certain way according to theose observations. I just think it is so interesting how we, as humans, read one another to find how best to interact. It is not meant to be judgemental or disrespectful, simply to make the necessary adjustments to be most successful in the relationships we encounter.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter focused a lot on the perspective of different cultures. A Hearing culture has differences from a Deaf culture. The Deaf culture has different labels like Deaf or deaf. In the hearing culture we usually just label everyone as hearing. Hearing people take the term " A-LITTLE-HARD-OF-HEARING" differently than those who are Deaf. Neither is necessarily the "right" way, but cultures interpret things differently. "Many of our friends, like us, did not use one definition exclusively, but often switched meanings according to the context and situation." (41) This proves how meanings change throughout situations. Not everyone will have the same meanings for phrases and words as you, things vary. It was interesting to see the definitions of VERY-HARD-OF-HEARING and A-LITTLE-HARD-OF-HEARING. "'A-LITTLE-HARD-OF-HEARING.' We understood this to mean that the woman could hear only a little, not well enough to use the telephone."(39) This means that VERY-HARD-OF-HEARING mean that the person can speak well. We aren't all from the same culture so some stuff might not make sense to some while it makes perfect sense to others, thats just how stuff works out. I think its very important for everyone to be able and interpret phrases how your culture does, there is no need to try and enforce your own culture onto someone else or try and correct. It's perfectly normal for everyone to have differences.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter focused on labels within the Deaf culture and what those labels mean. The example that stood out to me was the difference between A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING and VERY HARD-OF-HEARING. From a hearing standpoint someone who is A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING would be someone who can hear pretty well, while someone who is VERY HARD-OF-HEARING would not be able to hear much at all. Though this is the way we, hearing people, view these words, Deaf people see it opposite from us because they have “a different center.” To them, “A-LITTLE HARD-OF-HEARING is a small deviation from DEAF, and thus is used for someone who is only slightly hearing. VERY HARD-OF-HEARING is someone who departs from the center greatly, thus someone who can hear quite well” (41). Since the center the hearing culture and Deaf culture are based off of the ability to hear, it is understandable that the views of these words would have opposite meanings for both. Other labels were mentioned such as disabled. In the book, the Deaf man the authors spoke with did not classify himself as disabled, but used the term disabled for “only those who are blind or physically handicapped” (44). With this definition, we have learned that Deaf people are not physically handicapped because they can do anything a hearing person can except hear, thus they are not disabled. It was interesting to see how labels are used and in what context within the Deaf community.
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