Through Deaf Eyes: The American Sign Language

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.

Fear can be a big factor in deciding things. Like Equality I use fear to my advantage. I use it to help drive me to do better on test. Equality was very brave to use fear to his advantage. A quote that helps me with overcoming my fears is “You cannot keep running away from your fears. At some point in life you will have to build up the courage to face and overcome

Fear is one of the most basic and vital aspects of human behavior. To our ancestors, it was often the only thing that kept them alive, but today, with less and less things in the natural world people have to be afraid of, it usually just keeps them from working towards their goals. Fear can prevent one from pursuing their dream in that it forces us to be afraid of the future and can act as a catalyst for people giving up.

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)

Fear can come anytime in the silence of the night or in the bright glare of the day. Fear cannot be conquered. We

The book also describes how life has changed for deaf adults through the years. Previously, many deaf adults were not able to get jobs in many places, because there were not many places that were accepting to them. These days, however, almost every business or company is looking for those that are fluent in American Sign Language, due to the simple fact that they would be able to accommodate that many more people and earn more money for their business. Also, there were not many outlets for deaf adults to use in relation to entertainment or basic needs, because again, mostly everything was catered to hearing adults only. However, they have recently developed many different ways for the deaf to communicate with the hearing and with one another, including TTY, full-keyboard, and internet phones and closed-captions on television stations and movies.

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.

Aside from communication and language, there are also such things as beliefs and customs that have lent towards the deaf and deaf-blind cultures. A positive attitude toward being deaf is typical in Deaf cultural groups. Deafness is not generally considered a condition that needs to be fixed. Culturally Deaf people value the use of natural sign languages that exhibit their own grammatical conventions, such as American Sign Language and British Sign Language, over signed versions of English or other spoken languages. Deaf culture in the United States tends to be collectivist rather than individualist; culturally Deaf people value the group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture#Values_and_beliefs). Culturally Deaf people have rules of etiquette for such things as, getting attention, walking through signed conversations, and otherwise politely negotiating a signing environment. It is also commonplace for them to arrive early for certain events, to ensure an optimum

The Deaf community uses sign language as a way of communications and understanding of the world around them. There were many eventful downfalls in history that proves the oppression of the Deaf community and the culture. Back in early history, the Hebrew Law and the Ancient Greeks denied deaf rights.

However deaf culture is still a closely guarded memory thing to many. The American Deaf community views and values ASL as the central hub of a culturally Deaf identity. Through American Sign Language, members are given a unique way for expression of their personality, a special and visual language that does need the use of sound and puts emphasis on

The influence of being a culture has changed the meaning of “Deaf” for Deaf people. “Deaf” refers to a person who is a part of the culture, while “deaf” refers to a person's ability to hear. American Sign Language or “ASL,” is a language developed by the Deaf that uses different hand movements, gestures and facial expressions for communication. It originated from

Teaching basic sign language in school can provide vital knowledge for possible emergency situations and other interactions with deaf individuals. However, it is not the ultimate solution to breaking down the barrier between the “us vs them”. The only way to stop the stereotyping of deaf people is based on the view of the individual. Society can change rules but unless each individual is able to gain the experience of communicating with deaf individuals, prejudices will

Fear is the number one obstacle everyone must overcome at some point in their life. When the word fear is brought up I like to think of past situations that I experienced. There are many different methods used to conquer and learn from our fears such and exposure therapy, having a growth mindset, and thinking positive. For example, when I was younger fear was my worst enemy, School was the main reason that caused my fear. My fear of failure was my biggest obstacle growing up so I used that as a method to learn from my fears.

The goal that is expressed in the introduction is that his book is writing about deaf people in a new life. This book goes beyond the physical condition of not being able to hear and that being deaf is an illness, they highlight how there is so much more interesting aspects to a deaf person then many people may understand. The way we can truly understand a person is threw them using sign language. Sign language helps to “portray the life they live, threw their art and performances, their everyday talk, shared myths and the many lessons they can teach one another” (Humphries, Padden ,1).