Deaf Culture

Deaf Culture

Believe it or not, deaf people see deafness as a culture, not disability.

What is Deaf culture? Before I make an introduction for Deaf culture, we have to know the definition of culture in general and what things that makes it a culture. A culture is made up of patterns, products, behaviors, and beliefs coming from social, ethnic, and age group.

There are many things that Deaf culture has that make it a part of culture. I've done a lot of research on this culture, read a few books about deafness and studied Deaf culture. There are many things to learn about deaf culture. Deaf culture has sign language, art in deafness theme, creative writings, theatre, and social life that part with deafness.

To begin with sign language, sign language is what originally establishes its own culture. It is the aspect of deaf culture closely identified with deafness. There's a variety of different sign languages, not just one. Each country has its own sign language. For example, there is American Sign Language, German Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language, and Korean Sign Language.

There are many artists who are deaf, produce their art related to deafness. For instance, deaf artists create their own art in sign language theme but in a friendly way. Deaf artists could make a sign "I love you" out of clay molds, paint something that describe deaf culture, or make American Sign Language themed illustrations. Some artwork that deaf artists have done can be found on display at National Technical Institute for the Deaf's Dyer arts center in Rochester, New York.

Deaf culture has its own theatre. Deaf people produce their movies, with the use of sign language. There are actually many Deaf actors and Deaf actresses that are well-known, especially comedians that take a part in stage performances, and films. Famous Deaf people are Marlee Matlin, CJ Jones, and Keith Wann. Yet there are more famous deaf people to know.

Several deaf people already have written and established their books and poems based on their experiences as being deaf and sign language theme and deafness. Some of their books already have become required in Deaf studies classes. Deaf people write books and poems to express how they feel about hearing loss or describe deafness. Marlee Maltin is also a book author for her book, Deaf Child Crossing. Mark Drolsbaugh is another good book author for his book, Deaf Again.

There are many different forms of socialization in the deaf community. For example, in the deaf community, Deaf people always have the meetings to come to at some place such as restaurant, and Starbuck or any place that is best considered for to meet and chat. These meetings actually have a variety of names for themselves like ASL dinner, and Silent Supper.

To summarize, Deaf culture has many things that show that Deafness has its own culture. Deaf artists produce their art in sign language theme like making an "I love you" clay mold. In Deaf theatre there are actors and actresses that take a part in stages and performances. Deaf people write and publish books and poems based on their experiences as being deaf. Deaf community has a variety of different socializations such as ASL dinner and Silent Supper. Because of what I have learned, I see deafness as a culture instead of disability.

A Man's Perspective on Deafness

A Visual Language?

Did you know that Signed English is not actually a sign language? I would not call it a sign language, because English language comes in three different forms which are speaking, writing, and signing. First off, you speak English when you speak words in stranded English. You write English when you write words in English grammar. You sign English when you sign every single word in a sentence.

In my opinion, I think Signed English (or Sign Exact English) is not a strongly effective communication. The reason for that is while signing, you don't have a time to throw facial expressions to go with signing together. If you ever attempt to put it with that together, it would appear that your conversation is a little tedious, too long, and a little confusing. A listener would probably lose interest in having a conversation with you and move on with another person who is more understandable and has a language that is simpler than Signed English.

If you think Signed English is a sign language then you are completely wrong. Just remember, English comes in many different forms such as speaking, writing, and signing language. But signing in English doesn't make you a bad person. Anyone who signs in English may have a good reason why he or she does that. Perhaps that person is only teaching oneself English.

Signing a different signing language rather than Signed English doesn't make you a less person, like take American Sign Language for a good example. There, you can get the idea.

Note: When I was in a mainstreamed school for fourth grade through eighth grade only, I was brainwashed to use Signed English. No one forced me to use it. I had to do it to communicate better with people who are not deaf or do not sign. While learning English, I was almost starting to forget American Sign Language. After finishing middle school, I took American Sign Language classes in high school to learn ASL again. American Sign Language was my native language because it was introduced and taught to me in elementary school where I went to with a large group of deaf children.

American Sign Language V.S. Deaf Culture

If you believe that you are rejecting Deaf culture because you do not sign in American Sign Language, then you are terribly wrong. If American Sign Language is (the) language of Deaf culture then every Deaf people from all over the world could have communicated in ASL. Open your eyes! (or better yet, be open-minded if you may, please.) And then you would clearly see that American Sign Language is not the primary language of Deaf culture. Do you realize that some countries have their own sign language? Bet that you do. It is never thought that the primary language of Deaf culture would be American Sign Language. Everything in Deaf culture is pretty much associated with sign language. Not signing in American Sign Language doesn't mean you are rejecting Deaf culture. So go figure.

Culturally Deaf??

What gives Deafness a cultural identity? I'll give an easy hint. It is established as a culture when a deaf person conquers difficult obstacles in life without letting deafness let him down. Suppose a deaf person feels achieved, after overcoming deafness as a disability, he might say:

"I feel so great, and this somehow gives me a pride…but what is this I am proud of? My conquest over my disability? No, no, it must be more than that. I don't know. I'm not sure."

That is when the deaf person will recognize it as a pride in Deafness and give it a big capital letter "D" for culture. It becomes celebrated as Deaf culture through its own art, theatre, media and creative writing. This took me a long time to learn this while seeking an identity. I was greatly taken by a surprise when I learned this. Anyone who is "deaf" doesn't need to be labeled as culturally Deaf. It is up to them to decide.

If you want to give me corrections on this, please do.

What Is It Like to Be Deaf??

I sometime wondered about if people, who could hear fully ever imagine themselves in a deaf (or culturally Deaf) person’s shoe or not.

Maybe they have thought about it before, but not giving it a lot of thoughts in different way. For instance, to some people, deafness is often thought of as just a disability. For culturally Deaf people, Deafness is not really something that certain people who see negativity in just because they (deaf people) accept it as a culture that helps them establish deafness as their true identity. I must admit, that my ambivalence on Deaf pride still remains although I strongly admire the beauty of sign language and still do.

I can say that sign language is awesomee!

My personal experiences as a deaf person will be explained to show a real perspective in Deaf world. The evidence to that is I was born deaf and had a cochlear implant at the age of 15. Sign language is a huge importance in Deaf world.

First, my hearing was profoundly lost at birth and the cause of my deafness was believed to be from my mother’s illness. I don’t really know how deep my hearing loss is and I don’t really give a darn about it. I imagine that must suck for me. But it didn’t bother me a lot when I think about it because I have been deaf for all of my whole life. When I was a little child, my hearing aids did not help me much as I thought they would do for the other deaf children who use hearing aids. Like, hearing aids only help the other children who can hear a little. I couldn’t hear really well like they did.

By the age of 15 or so, I had a cochlear implant surgery during my freshman year of high school so I could hear anything good with my cochlear implant but not hear excellently as hearing people would normally do. Before ever getting a cochlear implant, I grew up not hearing a lot of things such as a telephone ringing, a water faucet running, water flushing from a toilet, etc. With my cochlear implant, anything can be only heard but on different level from what people can hear. Funny, I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I happen to hear the noise of my urine down in a toilet bowl all the time.

Then again, it is imagined that in hearing people’s view, not hearing anything every day is like having a sense of the world in cold, dead silence. Like, anything cannot be truly seen without hearing. I’ve been so used to being deaf for a long time, so that silence never bothered me. My meaning of silence is different to what people think. As a deaf person, silence is like people not doing anything. Motionless. When I first learned sign language as my “spoken” language, sign language now became like a visual noise to me. For example if I were taken to a party where there are no people that use sign language, I would be terribly bored because things in the party seem to be quiet for me because people don’t sign. In deaf people’s view, seeing none of the use of sign language anywhere is like….having a sense of the world in scary, breathless silence.

In brief, these things are the parts of my experiences from Deaf world that I am living in. I was born fully deaf and so I don’t hear. My ear was implanted with a hearing device so I can hear. Sign language is my only “spoken” language. My experiences should show the perspective of what it is like to be in a deaf person’s shoe. I don’t like to reveal much of my life but I do this to show that deaf people do not make victims out of themselves. They are capable of doing anything except hearing.

*Just to note: Sign language in the video is British and my language is not. :o)