BSL learning

Working with a community in the situation of deaf people has certain similarities to working with the Indians in Brazil.  It requires a commitment not to education and to service provision, but a commitment to learn and to work alongside.  When the deaf person meets a hearing person and does not use "BSL", he or she is reacting to a system which is internalised - hearing people value speech above all else, you are hearing, therefore I should try to speak.  Overcoming this for the hearing person, is not hard in that it does not need excessive energy.  It requires only openness and time.  Learning and sharing occur when the attitudes are common to both parties, where a commitment to being together is evident.

However, the situation on the deaf side is more complex.  Since time began for the deaf community, it has been clear that the language of power is spoken language.  Just as trading natives in the Far East created a pidgin to deal with the dominating colonialists, so deaf people find themselves having to work in a pidgin[i] situation.  It is natural.  However, it has become in the deaf situation, a major concession by the hearing people.  As a way of recognising you, we will adopt your pidgin, (because it will help you come closer to our language). But it is not clear that there is a real recognition of deafness or of deaf people.  Nevertheless, deaf people because of their history, may well believe the mixed language will enhance their competence in the majority language, but it is hardly liberating.

The outcome is that deaf people will often see the mixed language - SSE as being a step forward.  In Freire’s terms this would be a further acceptance of oppression.

Dependence on one another

Just as there is an oppressive relation between the two parties, the oppressor relies on the existence of the relationship to justify his actions.  So there is a circle.  Oppression happens because one group dominates the other;  but the dominating group cannot be in the top position without the existence of the other group;  and this cannot occur unless the oppressed group in some way accepts the position.  To that extent the oppressed needs the oppressor and the circle is complete.

In deafness, hearing people cannot help deaf people unless they need help.  But to ensure that they need help, they have to be labelled as needing help.  A whole assessment procedure builds up to justify the assessment and the deaf person (or his parents) accept the creating of the label.  In order for the deaf person to survive, he or she has then to accept the help.  If the help is rejected the circle is broken, but the rejection, brings a further label and greater sanctions until the deaf person has to accept a different form of help.

The hearing person cannot get out of this situation because their job and existence is devoted to this circle of dependence.  Their importance is derived from the situation of the dependent person.  So often the hearing professional has to define his or her importance by the extent of the problem or by the incidence of it.  So the hearing person has to have so many deaf people to look after, or people with such and such a very serious problem.

We can see how the two parties are linked together.

Education as the key?

It is often assumed that education is the key to dealing with this problem; it is true that we often give our educational experts the greatest respect when hey deal with the great problems of those who do not fit into society.  In order to deal with the problems of oppressed groups we can focus on access to information.  This can be seen as the need to be aware of all the information and knowledge which the hearing person has.  But such knowledge is based on hearingness.  If a deaf person tries to access this, all she or he is doing is adopting hearing knowledge.

This type of situation is made worse by a general view that education is system of banking.  The aim of the teacher is to give to the student information, facts or skills which would not otherwise be there.  These are seen as some kind of deposit which will have to be repaid to society at some later date.

In Freire’s view this is not an appropriate concept to use.  Education is negotiated and demands an openness in the teacher as well as the learner.  The aim is that the student can become a being in himself or herself, rather than a clone of the teacher.  This is very hard because the stated aim of the educator is to integrate and to facilitate access to the hearing norms.  When the child becomes indistinguishable from the other children then there is success.

Why won’t they accept help?

A final point which comes as a big shock to hearing and to deaf people working with deaf children or with other deaf people.  Why is it that the oppressed person does not readily accept the help?  And why is it that the deaf person does not become less oppressed because the hearing person informs him or her about the situation.  Helping is ineffective in this direct way.  Co-operation is more important.  The deaf person or deaf child will begin to develop their own reality and it is this which must be achieved.

So what has all this got to do with language?

Much of the above information has been about the social and personal circumstance of individuals and minority groups.  It may not seem to be directly concerned with language.  However, this is the degree of attitude change which is needed if the collaborative change is to occur.  Freire claims that the oppressor cannot remove the oppression - it can only be done by the oppressed person.  But unless the hearing person has direct access to the language of deaf people there can be no real negotiation.  If there is only partial knowledge, the deaf person has to use the pidgin or mixed language mode and to do so obscures the deaf experience.  Since many deaf people will not or cannot make the changes to their communication to make it more hearing like then this automatically cuts off the process which is  supposed to be happening.

We can see this process at work in the movement towards mainstreaming.  As deaf people or their parents can be convinced that the child is more hearing-like, then they can be adopted into hearing society - in school or at work.  Tighter classification is supposed to indicate greater degrees of problems, but in reality is a statement of how poor communication is between the hearing person and the deaf person whom he or she has to help.  The dimension is defined mainly in terms of language.  If the hearing person understood the process better then he or she would have a pathway opened to language competence which would in turn allow the real co-operative development of the deaf person.  This would in turn offer the deaf person a chance to define their needs and to offer insight into their own view of society.

Language is the key - but to achieve the competence, the hearing person needs to understand the process at work.  Deaf people have a specific role in this in two ways:

informing the hearing person of how the process works

changing their own means of working with other deaf people and  with deaf children (to avoid becoming an agent of the hearing community and implanting in deaf children, more of the hearing values which would deny their deafness)

The actual learning of the language in terms of the words or signs is trivial in comparison to this first step of involvement.  Achieving bilingualism comes about through a collaboration with the community.  Without this perceived involvement and without the effort to achieve it the sign competence will feel as if it lacks foundation.  Working on this together has to be our aim.

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This page was last modified January 29, 2007
jim.kyle@bris.ac.uk