Deaf Culture Research Paper

While reading " Deaf in America: Voices From A Culture " I notice the purpose of this book was to wrote about Deaf people in a new and different way. The book main focus is that Deaf people have a condition that they can't hear. The culture of Deaf people is what both authors want to begin yo betray. What I found interesting while reading is that the majority of indidivauls within the community of Deaf people do not join it at birth. While reading these chapters I've seen both auhtors try to present the culture from the inside to discover how Deaf people describe themselves and how they think about their lives.

Hearing is something people take for granted because living without it, is not something a lot of people know. With not knowing or even understanding the struggles a Deaf person goes through, comes a sense of discrimination from lack of understanding. Deaf people are sometimes paired with being unintelligent, this makes an immediate association of deafness to dumb. This societal barrier is one where deaf people are looked down upon for something they have no control over. Deaf people lack the opportunity of acceptance to prove themselves as something other than their disability. The immediate abhor that is

The book “A Journey into the Deaf-World”, by Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, and Ben Bahan, is about the different people who are considered deaf: hard-of-hearing, deaf, and CODA. People who are hard-of-hearing are people who don 't hear well; people who are deaf lack the power of hearing since birth; you can be born hearing and throughout time lose some or all of your hearing sense. People who are CODA (children of deaf adults) are often signing because their parents are deaf and CODA’s often are helpful by being interpreters. CODAs become a great link between their parents and the hearing world. This book explains about deaf culture and how sign is a visual and manual way of conversing. The benefits of sign language are many and the ASL “foreign language” is growing among hearing as well. About more than 500,000 people sign in America alone. ASL is dated from 1779, but probably even earlier. Sign language promotes cultural awareness; deaf culture uses sign language as their main form of communicating.

There are numerous facts concerning the Deaf culture that I am not aware of, and a few of those elements have been made known. One of the new facts that surprised me was that approximately 90 percent of Deaf people are married to other Deaf people. This goes along with them being a tight-knit community. Another interesting piece of information I have learned is that I am to focus on a signer’s face, instead of their hands, while they are signing. Once I began to consider the expressions he or she would be showing while signing, and how one should pay attention while talking to another, it made perfect sense.

People used to think that being Deaf was a sin and a major disability. I don’t really understand this view, as being Deaf is not a choice because a majority of the time, most people are born Deaf. Just because a person can’t hear, doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them. Deaf culture is so mesmerizing as their is such a deep connection within the community and they even have their own language. What people need to do is put themselves in the shoes of a Deaf person and imagine how difficult it must be being the “odd one out” all the time.

The purpose of this research paper is to answer the major question, what is Deaf culture? There are three sub-questions that will assist in answering the major question: (1) What constitutes Deaf culture? (2) How has American Sign Language impacted the Deaf community? (3) What are the major issues that are being addressed in Deaf culture today? With these questions answer, it will give a better understanding as to what Deaf culture is and that it is indeed a culture.

In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at

Two centuries ago, the Deaf community arose in American society as a linguistic minority. Members of this community share a particular human condition, hearing impairment. However, the use of American Sign Language, as their main means of communicating, and attendance to a residential school for people with deafness also determine their entry to this micro-culture. Despite the fact that Deaf activists argue that their community is essentially an ethnic group, Deaf culture is certainly different from any other cultures in the United States. Deaf-Americans cannot trace their ancestry back to a specific country, nor do Deaf neighborhoods exist predominantly throughout the nation. Additionally, more than ninety percent of deaf persons are born

This book was mainly focused on looking at Deaf culture of today and comparing it to the culture of the past, and what kinds of struggles deaf people had to endure to get where they are today. The two authors of this book are deaf; one was deaf her whole life and the other became deaf as a child. In my opinion, that was a major contributing factor to why it was so interesting. The reader gets a chance to travel through the history of the Deaf through words from those who have experienced it. It also had a positive impact because the authors let the readers know in the introduction that they are deaf and a brief history of themselves, which I

Deaf people share certain behavioral norms such as eye contact, body language and gestures enable them to communicate effectively. They rely on body touch waving hands, using a third person, hugs and have open communication. They value the ASL, interpreters, devices that help them communicate effectively such as vibrating systems, and visual alerts. They have a tradition of sticking or forming their own groups where they champion for their rights and respect from others in the community. The Deaf subculture is referred to as a subcultural group mainly because the members have distinct behaviors, physical artifacts, traditions, values, history, and beliefs that distinguish them from the other people (Minnesota Department of Human Services, 2013).

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to PBS home video “Through Deaf Eyes,” there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing (Hott, Garey & et al., 2007) . Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are over ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents. Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group, every region, and every economic class.” The

Deaf and hard of hearing people are just like us. They are not any different, but hears like us. There is some common misunderstanding, that is really annoying for Deaf and hard of hearing people. Those misunderstanding are can you understands us? Are you able to drive? Do you need a wheelchair? Can you read and write? Do deaf people have sex? Etc.…These kinds of questions annoyed deaf people the most. People do not realize that deaf people do not have as much as difficulty as normal folks thinks that they have. They can do almost everything and just as much no less. Sometime, they begged to be considered the same as hearing folks. They want to be equals, respected, and value just as much as hearing people. Sometime, we forgot to ask ourselves.

It is easy to see why Deaf culture is so critical of those who assimilate with hearing culture because the Deaf have had a history of struggle and discrimination. Hearing culture has been critical of what Deaf people are able to do and have denied their existence. In the past American deaf people have been denied the right to vote, to marry, and to raise children (Halpern). Deaf children often were denied education, grew up illiterate, or grew up with no real language because at one point in time sign language was not allowed (Halpern).

In some western cultures such as America and Australia, not much education is put forward regarding the deaf community and those facing this communication problem. In an annual conference where an individual of the deaf community was asked to discuss her experience as a deaf person living in a hearing community, Heather Artinian described the communication barrier between the two communities (The Heather world: Heather Artinian at TEDxGeorgetown, 2013). Similarly, in sub-Saharan Africa, there is not much emphasis placed on deaf culture and those facing auditory impairment. To date, there is not sub-Saharan African country that has dependable data regarding its deaf population. Today, education for the Deaf in most sub-Saharan African countries is sub-par at best (The Borgen Project, 2013). Education for the Deaf in sub-Saharan Africa is severely deficient, and they are often deprived of the opportunity to successfully live their lives independently to the best of their abilities. These two cultures do not spend a substantial amount of time and give appropriate education on the emphasis of those who are deaf and living among the

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to an online transcript,“Through Deaf Eyes” (Weta and Florentine films/Hott productions Inc., 2007) there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing. Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents (Halpern, C., 1996). Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group,