Deaf Culture Essay

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Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a capital D, and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audio logical condition, it is written with a lower case d. Members of the Deaf community tend to view deafness as a difference in human experience rather than a disability. With the awareness of the Deaf Community becoming stronger with everyday people are beginning to form two major views on Deaf Culture. The two prevalent positions are the “pathological model” and the “cultural model”. The pathological model sees the hearing community as the normal or what is accepted, and then compares the Deaf Community and how it is different. The cultural model is clearly different. This model looks at the Deaf Community as a difficult culture that has it own rules and cultural aspects. The pathological model clearly can and does result in cruel attitudes and treatment. This view sees the Deaf Community as having a great problem and as a whole is completely not comparable to the hearing community. Sadly some parents of deaf children hold this view. Things like speech therapy and cochlear implants result, not saying that these things are wrong or bad, but they are different form the views of the cultural model. The cultural model sees the Deaf community as a group of people that are bonded together by a language and culture of their own. Most Deaf people and people that have been open to Deaf Culture share this opinion. This model sees the Deaf Community just as if it was any other culture rather it be Spanish or Russian. I chose this topic because it is very interesting culture and

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