American Sign Language: Deaf Culture

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Deaf Culture When I first started American Sign Language, I knew it was different from other languages that people usually learnt. The main and most notable difference is that in ASL the language is “spoken” through your hands, relied through your expressions and understood with your body language. Most ASL users are deaf or hard of hearing but that does not exclude against hearing people as well, such as; teachers, interpreters, parents, children, family , friends or anyone willing to learn a new language . There are many misconceptions about sign language, many in which I once believed – but after learning about deaf culture my knowledge has been expanded and my willingness to learn more was greatly broadened. Just as Italian and…show more content…
ASL is not an international established language- many countries across the world have their own versions of sign. American Sign Language is actually a mixture of French Sign Language, native Indian Sign Language and native Martha Vineyard Sign Language. The true beginning of deaf culture in American, through my eyes, is that of the establishment of the American School for the Deaf in 1817, before this the most common known way of sign was called home signs. In the documentary ’Through Deaf Eyes’, you look in the history of over 200 years of deaf culture. You see the struggles, conflicts, and prejudice in personal experience of individuals and how they grow in a strong community. I strongly enjoyed the particular attention to the controversy over the hiring of a hearing person, as president of Galludet University, and the Deaf President Now movement- how as a community these people were “heard”. While…show more content…
Their daughter, Lynn, is born in the 1960's at a time when deafness was not widely understood. The culturally and socially acceptable method of dealing with this so-called disability was the oral method which involves teaching deaf children to speak through hours of careful instruction and practice of lip reading, controlling air flow, making sounds from the diaphragm, etc. Lynn's parents, Tom and Louise Spradley go through a heart wrenching struggle as they try to teach their daughter to communicate. The oral method proves to be unsuccessful for them and Lynn only learns five words in three years; meanwhile her behavior becomes worse as she gets older and experiences the frustration of not being able to communicate. The light at the end of the tunnel finally comes when the Spradley's discover ASL. This is an amazing story and shows the true story of a family learning open their minds

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