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!
This chapter starts out by saying that some hearing people think that Deaf people live in a world without sound, in order to try and help explain a movie was made where "Instead of giving the boy's perspective, the scene most likely terrifies the hearing audience into recognizing their own fear of any loss of sound" (91). I don't think that hearing people fear loss of sound it is just that we have never experienced what the world is like without sound so we have no concept of what it would be like. For example, when we wake up you hear the cars passing by or the birds chirping and suddenly not having that would be very different and unsettling. Even though Deaf people cannot hear sound they can feel sound, when you put your hand on a speaker you can feel the beat and so can Deaf people they just can't hear it. Many Deaf people are loud because they can't hear themselves. When I was in my first year I was talking to a lady who had lost her hearing at the age of 25 and she could read lips really well so how we communicated was I would speak normally facing her so she could read my lips and she would talk back to me she just couldn't hear what I was saying, she kept clearing her throat while she was talking rather loudly which caused others to stare at us and I hate to admit but at first I was embaressed but I quickly realized that she couldn't hear herself and what she was doing was completely normal and soon I forgot all about it and had a normal conversation with her. "Many times what we thought were innocent or reasonable sounds turned out to have different significance from what we had thought" (99). There is no shame in the noises our body makes and there is nothing we can do to control it we just have to accept ourselves. Deaf people may not hear but there lives are very far from silent and they do understand the concept of what sound is.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was very interesting to me, largely because of the flipped perception it gave me relating to how people experience sound. The book stated, "...a widespread misconception among hearing people is that Deaf people live in a world without sound" (96). This sentence made me stop and think about what exactly the authors were saying. Yes, the Deaf cannot HEAR persay, but they are still able to experience sound. The book spoke about how it used to be a common belief that being Deaf meant living in horrifying isolation, but that that is not in fact true. Thinking about it more, I realize that the absence of sound could actually serve as a calming phenomenon. The book went on to talk about Deaf actors using hand-shapes to connect with audiences, and this reminded me of playing with shadow puppets on walls as a child. The most interesting part of this chapter for me, was hearing about how the Deaf try so hard to understand how the Hearing perceive sound. This stuck out to me, because I sit here as a Hearing person, attempting to understand how the DEAF understand sound. Another passage that stuck out to me was one speaking about how Deaf children often make noises that are loud (and unpleasant to Hearing ears) in order to understand sound further. The book reads, "...until at last the [H]earing counselors could no longer tolerate the whoops, shrieks, blood-curdling yells, pounding of walls...would storm into the room, yelling..." (96). This makes me think even more about the differing perspective. I have seen people make noises like the book describes, and have felt frightened and disturbed-I never stopped to consider that they may be merely exploring their world in one of the only ways available to them. The need to make loud sounds in order to hear vibrations is something I'd never thought of. It was also interesting to me to hear about flatulence, and how the Deaf are unsure of whether it is perceived the same as coughing and sneezing in social situations. This is something I've never thought of, but was cool to hear about. Finally, the joke about the husband honking his car horn to identify which room his Deaf wife was sleeping in put a smile on my face!
ReplyDeleteThis chapter gave me a new perspective on sound within the Deaf. "When hearing people identify Deaf people as silent, they are mistakenly assuming that Deaf people have no concept of sound, that sound plays no part in their world, or that if it does, their ideas about it are deeply distorted. The truth is that many Deaf people know a great deal about sound, and that sound itself-not just its absence-plays a central role in their lives" (93). Many hearing people, myself included before taking this class, just assume that they're Deaf, they have no interaction with sound at all. But sound is everywhere within the lives of Deaf people. They can feel the vibrations, "For many deaf people, the lower frequencies are the most easily detectable, creating not only loud sounds they can hear but vibrations on the floor and furniture" (94). Mr. Harris described this to us a little bit. He did a simulation where he banged his hand on a desk and has us feel the vibrations. Sounds aren't missing from the life of a deaf person, they are just presented in different forms than that in a hearing person. They focus on feeling the sound while we focus on hearing the sound.
ReplyDeleteI guess silent and Deaf aren't necessarily hand in hand as hearing people would like to believe. "To hearing people, the metaphor of silence portrays what they believe to be the dark side of Deaf people...and are condemned to a life lacking the depth of meaning that sound makes available to hearing people" (91-92) Being what the majority of the world is based on, of course sound will be such a huge part of our lives as hearing people. Since it's such an integral part of our existence, of course we couldn't imagine the depth of life we have now without it. However, imagine you don't grow up with that luxury. This is where Deaf people fall into place. They don't lack the depth of life built on the luxury of sound because they never experienced it (assuming we're talking 100% deaf people). I am sure that they can gain deep meaning in their life through any of their other four senses. They can even use those senses to make up for the one they are missing. "Harmony, variation, resonance, and dissonance...Thinking of Deaf people as ilent makes it impossible to recognize that, in certain aspects of their lives, they find ways to represent such concepts" (104). They use their movements to represent these concepts. These concepts don't always have to directly relate to sound. They relate to the idea of expressed concepts and how they fit together. We as hearing people relate everything to sound. Being such an integral part of our lives, how can we not? But we can't place our perceptions on others. That's why this book is invaluable. It flips the script and helps us to change our perspective.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was about the nature of sound when you are Deaf. I found it very interesting how there would be an influence from sound in the lives of the Deaf even when they cannot hear. Despite the fact that they may or may not be able to necessarily “hear” sound, they can still learn about it through vibrations and such. “The boys learned...that they could make sound louder by projecting it into a corner rather than into the center of the room. They could use the walls as a resonating chamber. And to better direct the sound and increase its volume, they would cup their hands together and direct the voice through the narrow channel of their hands into the corner” (95-96). Despite the fact that these Deaf children could not hear sound in the same sense that you and I do, they were still able to use vibrations and other frequencies to learn about the properties of sound. Deaf children also had to be taught what was “acceptable” sound and what was not. One girl told about how she did not know whether the sound of passing gas was acceptable or not, but soon learned otherwise. “A college student discovered one day in a cafeteria line that an unrestrained belch led the hearing people around him to draw conclusion about his socioeconomic class...the trick for Deaf people living among hearing people is to figure out the complicated meanings attached to various sounds” (98-99). The book lists many stories of which children made sounds involuntarily and were told that such sounds were rude or offensive. It never occurred to me just how much the hearing culture is touchy when it comes to sounds. It also never occurred to me that Deaf people would have to learn early on what makes sound and what doesn’t, what sound is acceptable and what isn’t. This gives me a whole new idea of what the meaning of sound is and how it fits into the lives of Deaf people.
ReplyDeleteI found this chapter particularly interesting because it talked about the misconception that "silent" is synonymous with Deaf. One idea that I found interesting was that "sound is also an organization of meaning around a variation in the physical world" (92). I thin that this is an interesting way to think about sound, and challenges the way that we think about Deaf people. A particularly interesting revelation in this chapter is that "it wasn't that we didn't know these things made sounds, but that we didn't know how the sounds would be interpreted" (98). I find this interesting because this is something that we as hearing people take for granted in a way, that we have certain emotions toward certain sounds. However, Deaf people do not really have the same connection with sound, and would have no real way of knowing what sounds are "inappropriate" or "appropriate". This chapter really shed light on the connections that Deaf people have with sound.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was about how the Deaf understand sound and how (surprise, surprise) hearing people think the Deaf aren't able to comprehend sound because they can't hear it. "These images communicate the belief that Deaf people cannot have access to the world because it is primarily conveyed by sound and especially by the spoken word" (92). We learned in first year ASL that even though Deaf people cannot hear, they can still feel the vibrations. This is there access to sound. We also learned from a presenter a couple weeks back that just because you are Deaf, it doesn't mean you can't hear completely. There are different pitches and tones that cannot be heard, so it's hard to understand, but there is audio that is able to go through. Being a hearing person, I think that most of us take for granted what we have. "An elderly woman once told us that she had only recently learned that hearing people could hear their own voices" (93). I'm constantly thinking all the time, there is always a voice in my head. It's so weird to think that for some people this isn't the case. If anything, this chapter taught me that we as hearing people should not take the sounds we hear for granted, however we should also know that just because Deaf people can't hear, it doesn't mean they don't experience life the same way we do.
ReplyDeleteI think that although I consider myself to have a rather open mind about Deaf people, it was still interesting to read this chapter. If someone were to ask me "do Deaf people live in a world without sound?" and said "think fast!" I would've said, well yeah they can't hear anything! But when you actually think about it, although they lack the ability to experience sound the traditional way, they still experience it. There are some ways that I think about now where I am experiencing sound that I wouldn't need my hearing for. For example, my bedroom sits right above the garage, so when someone comes in through the garage, I not only hear the garage door open, but the house is in a way vibrating, meaning even without my hearing I would be able to experience this sound. Stuff like this comes into play a lot and as hearing people we just have no reason to think about it. An interesting thought about the meaning behind different signs for the same concept is this, "The task of translating material into signed language provoked serious arguments within the company about which 'form' of the signed language should be used" (81). This really brought to light the idea of how different a signed language is from a spoken language and how many different ideas can be put into one sign and one facial expression. Something else that's interesting is that you don't really think about this, but childrens games have to be altered to fit the needs of Deaf children. When you're Deaf, to use sound you have to use vibrations and be in areas that reverberate well. For example, "Another friend told us that he and his young playmates... would go into the playroom and invent games that used sound at as loud a volume they could manage," (95). They could only use the sound when it was at extreme decibels, but of course they didn't necessarily know how loud they were being, they just knew that some ways they made the sound made it easier to hear and feel, and being in certain places made it easier to hear and feel as well.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter focused on the way Deaf view sound and how the majority of hearing people don't associate the idea of sound with Deaf culture. As a hearing community, it is common for people to think there is no way of sound for the Deaf. Learning about this in class has really opened up my eyes on the sound of the Deaf. The Deaf can feel sound through vibrations and so on. the author states, "To hearing people the metaphor of silence portrays what they believe to be the dark side of Deaf people, not only an inability to use sound for human communications, but a failure to know the world directly."(91-92) I found it interesting how much the Hearing community needs to become more aware of the Deaf culture. Not being able to hear does not mean failure of communication. Another example is, "When hearing people identify Deaf people as silent, they are mistakenly assuming that Deaf people have no concept of sound, that sound plays no part in their world, or that if it does, their ideas about it are deeply distorted." (93) Being an ASL student and learning so much about the Deaf culture has made me realize how much the Hearing society needs to change and realize our views on Deafness. Being Deaf does not mean there is no sound in the world, it shouldn't make a difference on how we view other people.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter talked about sound and the difference between the way hearing and Deaf people perceive it. If a hearing person were asked how they detect sound, they most likely would say through hearing. If they were then asked if they could detect sound if their hearing was taken away, the answer would most likely be no. Because we are able to link sound with hearing, it would be unusual for us to think that it would be able to be processed in another way. Since many hearing people believe this, they also believe that Deaf people live in silence and that "Deaf people cannot have access to the world because it is primarily conveyed by sound and especially by the spoken word" (92). Though this may be widely believed, it is false. Deaf people may not be able to hear, but they are able to experience sound in many other ways such as through the vibrations the sound gives off. I remember that we watched Extreme Makeover for the Deaf school in class. In this makeover, the people were able to create a room that had huge speakers so the Deaf students could enjoy music, something hearing people may have thought to be impossible. This makeover gave the students a place where they could go and listen to music by feeling the vibrations it gave off. As hearing people we distinguish sound with hearing, but just because Deaf people can’t hear it doesn’t mean they are unaware of the sounds around them. Deaf people do not live in silence “ but [they live with] very loudly click, buzz, swish, pop, roar and whir” (109).
ReplyDeleteI think hearing people;s iggest misconception of the Deaf comes from their assumption of what a life "without sound" would be like. It is something hearing people will never fully understand, and the Deaf cannot fully explain. This misconception starts with the portrayal of the Deaf in media and movies, such as the examples the author's start the chapter with: "Instead of giving the boy's perspective, the scene most likely terrifies the hearing audience into recognizing their own fear of any loss of sound" (91). Such representation of the Deaf coneys to the audience a quiet, lonely existence void of all noise. But sound, in its very essence, is vibrations, which the Deaf rely on daily. The chapter's title, "The Meaning of Sound", shows that sound can be interpreted in as many ways as there are people. The authors later say: "When hearing people identify Deaf people as silent, the are mistakenly assuming that Deaf people have no concept of sound, that sound plays no part in their world, or that if it does, their ideas about it are deeply distorted" (93). We can't understand how the Deaf interpret sound, just as we can't know how the hearing person next to us interpret's sound. It is very common for people to think everyone interprets everything the way they do, simply becaquse thet is the only way they can understand. While we can never fully understand the point of view of another in any regard, being openminded towards their life and their interpretation of the things around them gives people a whole new dimension of complexity.
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