Fairness Analysis

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.

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.

Deaf children are entitled to know that they are heirs to an amazing culture, not a pitiful defect. In order to follow through on that obligation, one of the best things I feel we can do is try to educate other hearing people about the realities of American Sign Language and Deaf culture. Language is one of the most critical aspects of most cultures, and one which sets deafness aside from other defects such as blindness, physical disability, or illness. Sign language is not universal, nor does it always correspond to the spoken language in the same country. For example American Sign Language is native to the United States and Canada. Deaf Canadians might use English, French, or both as a written language. But deaf people in Great Britain, while they may write in English, use a completely different sign language. (nad.org)

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

Deaf is defined as partially or completely lacking the sense of hearing as to where Deaf culture refers to members of the Deaf community who share common values, traditions, norms, language and behaviors. According to the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, three out of every 1,000 American children are born deaf or with hearing loss and 9 out of 10 of those children are born to fully-hearing parents. Most of these children who are deaf will attend public schools. By all, means teaching children who are deaf is not easy an easy task and can seem challenging for both the students and the teacher alike but it is certainly accomplishable. Therefore, in order for children who are deaf to succeed in a mainstream classroom, the teacher must first understand the Deaf culture and counteract stereotypes so that he or she may better serve students who are deaf. The article Deaf Culture Tip Sheet by Professor Linda Siple (2003) and Deaf Myths by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (2013) elaborates on these exact issues and provides a better insight on the culture of the Deaf community.

In the United States, culturally deaf people are joined together by a common language (American Sign Language, or ASL), a common history, and many common traditions. Most culturally deaf people are deaf or hard of hearing from birth or a young age. They also grow up using sign language for most of their lives. Between 21 million and 28 million people in the United States are hard of hearing or deaf. However, only a relatively small number of people (between 100,000 and 200,000) consider themselves culturally deaf. Most other deaf people either lose their hearing after childhood or grow up without using sign as their primary language.

The Federal Communications Commission stopped enforcing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, less than 40 years after the policy was created. The doctrine required broadcast stations to discuss important controversial issues and that they provide time for both sides of the argument. This included allowing someone who had been attacked on air the right to respond back. The FCC also reserved the right to take away a station’s license if they did not follow the set guidelines. During the 38 years that the policy was active, many stations had to use more time to talk about issues that did not necessarily align with their station.

The problem faced by the deaf community is the injustice they encounter when in the criminal justice system. Someone who is deaf or hard of hearing has at least a 50 percent loss of hearing in one ear (Ridgeway 2009), and some may be able to read lips. However, only ½ of all spoken sounds can be translated into American Sign Language (Ridgeway 2009), which makes it difficult for the deaf to communicate without using sign language. Because English and sign language are not the same language, many deaf people are illiterate because of a lack of schooling past a certain age. Even those with schooling up to the age of 18 or older are often functionally illiterate, read at a grade level of second grade or below, and have unintelligible speech

Depending on their language experience, most deaf immigrants go through their immigrant process learning English and American Sign Language simultaneously. Many struggle trying not to confuse the different grammar and syntax (Powers). They struggle with basic concepts. This struggle only causes a strain in creating a common language, which leaves deaf immigrants feeling isolated from the rest of the Deaf community. But even when they do begin to fully grasp the language they still can not communicate with family members who have not invested the time to learn American Sign Language. For many deaf immigrants they face adapting to an unfamiliar culture. American culture and sayings are difficult concepts to understand when there is a language barrier. Deaf immigrants are forced to quickly learn how to “Americanize” in order to fit in. Along with that, deaf immigrants face the challenge of finding transportation. Obtaining a drivers license is a very long and strung out process. Deaf immigrants must be literate in order to pass the written portion of the exam, which for some is a whole separate skill they must learn. But a major struggle many deaf immigrant face collectively is the search for their identity. Many fighting between the argument: is their deafness is a disability, or another human condition that builds community. For many Deaf Americans their deafness is not a disability, it is a culture.

questions 10-16 cover cochlear implants. This topic will be explored in depth in a future lesson.

Annotated Bibliography: Deaf, Not Disabled are The Deaf Another Culture, With Another Language? Or Should They Be Included in the New Disabilities Act? In the article, “Deaf, Not Disabled Are The Deaf Another Culture, With Another Language? Or Should They Be Included In The New Disabilities Act?”, author Maria Odom, talks about the different views of Deaf People.

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,

Sign language teaches deaf children to use the other senses such as sight to communicate with others. ASL centers on several techniques such as “hand shape, position, and movement, body movements, gestures, facial expressions, and other visual cues to form its words” instead of sounds and tones in the spoken language (“American Sign Language”).

Bauman and Murray (2010) defines Deaf Studies as “interdisciplinary approaches to the exploration of Deaf individuals, communities, and cultures as they have evolved within a larger context of power and ideology” (p. 210). In other words, Deaf Studies refer to a specific academic field that studies deaf individuals and their unique communities and culture and may include constructs from anthropology, linguistics, bilingual education, disability, audiology, etc. Within the context of Deaf Studies, deaf individuals are no longer defined solely by their lack of hearing, but by their cultural, linguistic, and sensorial ways of being in the world (Bauman & Murray, 2010). That is why we hear people educated with Deaf Studies saying ASL kids to refer to deaf kids who use American Sign Language (ASL) system as their mode of communication or see them writing “Deaf” instead of “deaf” to give reference to the universally-recognized culture of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Within the introduction the author expresses the importance of educating deaf children threw education and special training that they require and have they had the right to have available to them. The author explains the high importance sign language plays and the advantages it gives them insight, intervention into the deaf community. ASL, or sign language is essential within in this deaf community. Sign language is a creation of the deaf community’s history and it allows them to fulfill their protentional intertwined with all different types of cultures that sign language is built on.