Deafness in Society:  Session 12

Clark Denmark

12.0 Putting Everything in Place

When we began the Unit, we asked about the value of deafness and the need to understand how deaf people were unique. There are many negative aspects of deaf people’s lives through the long history of society misunderstanding. There are many lives which have been affected. Yet at the same time, the deaf community has existed and developed as a resource for deaf people and a place where the language and culture could grow. Nowadays, the community as a resource is not recognised. There are fewer community workers, fewer social workers with a community affiliation. There are fewer deaf people coming into the community through traditional routes from residential schools. There is more mainstreaming. There is at least the same extent of medical intervention although it is now promised as a cure for deafness (cochlear implants).

Yet at the same time there has been a huge upsurge in the positive self-image of deaf people. More deaf adults than ever before are entering higher education, are taking evening classes are working with their wider communities as sign teachers, counsellors, assistants in school and so on. The value of deafness can be seen in the model which it has begun to offer to people at large.

The balance should be expressed in the status of sign language and the deaf community. But is it?

12.1 Status of the Deaf Community

This is a complicated question as Deaf Communities are in different stages of development in different countries and in different parts of the UK. Everywhere there is an increasing awareness and evolving pride in being Deaf, but this is still based on an inadequate knowledge base. The work of the British Sign Language Training Agency in Durham University has done a great deal to set this process in motion. A considerable number of people have passed through their training courses, have been prepared to understand their own culture and have gone away much richer and more confident. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of grass-roots development needed to make sure the population at large have a grasp of their own identity. This is similar to other minority groups and relates to the lack of empowerment which was an earlier theme of this Unit.

Such a lack of empowerment should be a thing of the past in view of the major events which took place in Washington in March 1988. Gallaudet University which is the only deaf college in the world appointed a new President. as has been the standard pattern throughout the history of all organisation for deaf people, the hearing ruling body chose another hearing person for the post. Immediately this produced a great student protest movement which was likened to the civil rights movement in the 1960's. As well as being perfectly organised internally and being able to bring the University to a standstill, the protesters were able to enlist the sympathies of the nation and in particular to mobilise on their behalf, the politicians in Washington. As a result they were able to force the reversal of the decision to appoint a hearing person and had a deaf president installed. For the deaf community in general this was a historic and momentous event(Gallaudet in the News, 1988) which should have had a major impact across the world.
& Read Extracts about the Gallaudet Revolution in our resource room or in the library.

Unfortunately, there has been no spreading revolution and no re-statement of the rights of deaf people in any other country. Culture and identity are bound up in the experience of deafness and it is this aspect which has to be seen and understood by those decision-makers. If we fail to take the opportunity to understand we will continue to misunderstand deaf people, to deny their language and culture and to accentuate our own ethnocentricity.

12.2 British Sign Language and Culture

Language and culture are probably the most fundamental issues for the deaf community but ones which could not have been discussed openly until very recently. Missioners for the Deaf used to try to explain the position of deaf people - they were the original community workers or social workers. They were often considered to have gone native and to have adopted not only the cause of deaf people but to have had their judgment impaired by their continued contact with deaf people. Some were more influenced by the charitable nature of their work and saw deaf people as greatly handicapped. George Furth (whose book "Chosen Vessels", you should try to read,) described deaf people as "having minds like babies" as recently as the early 1980's and also said at a conference in 1979, that "sign language was a fossil" - to mean that it was an incomplete and unsatisfactory communication form. He was one of a long line of people who worked closely with deaf people and yet considered that what they did was not a language - was a poor substitute for English.

There were many misconceptions about sign language:
- it was only gesture, but faster
- it was just concrete, dealing with objects in sight
- it was derived from pictures
- it was not derived from pictures! (sometimes used to deny that certain things could be signed)
- there were very few signs, none had been recorded
& The leaflet Sign Language (in additional materials) will be helpful here.

These sort of statements were presented by those on whom the deaf most depended - teachers and social workers and as a result were all the more damaging. They built a wall around sign language and the deaf community, a wall which has not yet been fully dismantled. Leo Jacobs book, "A deaf man speaks out", is a very good rebuttal of many of these constraints which were placed on deaf people as a result.
Yet we are still only part of the way towards meeting all of the criticisms - we do not have an adequate description of the grammar of BSL and we cannot yet give a definitive answer to the question about the extent of BSL signs. It is true that BSL does not have signs for certain things that English has words for and it is also true that new signs entering the language are often influenced either by English or by the visual aspect of the action or object - deriving meaning from the iconic nature.

However, it is interesting that we do not have an agreed description of English at least in its spoken form and we have only theories about how English is acquired - and much less on other spoken languages. English borrows all the time from other languages - that is, it does not have the words for certain concepts. In the Guardian article which we used to give to people at interview for these courses - English was described as a "magpie among languages" meaning that it stole from other languages. The universal acceptance of English by the international community makes it very difficult to challenge the "superior position" of it - yet there are many features of English which are weak.

When we say:
The policeman held up his hand to stop the traffic
The doctor held up his hand to inspect the injury
The soldier held up his hand where the bullet had passed through
we have different meanings for each one, which can only determined when we understand a good deal about our culture. There would be no confusion in the signed version of these meanings. Locations in sign are generally unambiguous, yet we have immense problems in English.
(Lane, 1985, in Deaf Liberation, Why the deaf are angry, p 150-1, illustrates this spatial problem.)

What this tells us is that comments on the relative merits of different languages are unwise as each language develops to express the experiences of its users. At each new stage of the development of the deaf community new signs will be added. The language will become richer and richer.

12.3 Sign Language Status

In 1980-1, Tervoort received, from 20 countries in Europe, responses to a questionnaire about their views on sign language and its status. His survey results were published in 1983. He concluded that everywhere sign language awareness was on the increase, and noted that,

“ .... there are great extremes in European attitudes towards Sign, there is a tendency away from pure oralism, there is pressure on schools from outside, specifically from deaf adults and parents of deaf children ....” page 144.

He linked the progress to research but he suggested a continuum of development in education which might be the basis of society’s attitude to deafness:

“There appears to be a tendency to go from oral-only to speech with speech-supportive means ..... from these there is a movement in the direction of the use of Sign to better disambiguate the spoken word; next comes a signed version of the spoken language either with speech or without it ... and finally, the continuum develops from Signed Danish, Swedish, English to Danish Sign Language, Swedish Sign Language, British Sign Language etc.” page 146

Such changes at the beginning of the 1980s were thought to be revolutionary and sign language had been recognised in only a few countries. Nevertheless, there was considerable optimism for the improvement in the status of sign language.

In June 1988, the European Parliament confirmed this view and “recognised sign languages as used by deaf people in each member state.” It was assumed by deaf people that a major breakthrough had occurred. However, in many countries the visible and tangible effects of this breakthrough are hard to detect in 1996. The abolition of the remaining obstacles to the use of sign language seems as distant as ever. Just how distant is a major question of this study.

12.4 Two Languages

While the majority of people in Europe naturally and effortlessly acquire a spoken language for all social activity, in the past, deaf people have had to struggle to achieve a single natural language. Although there were times when sign language use was seen as an indication of deaf people’s monolingualism and symptomatic of isolation, our understanding is now rather different. However, rather than return to the last century when manualism was presented as the norm for deaf education, researchers have proposed the best of both worlds - bilingualism or a bilingual approach.

It is known from extensive linguistic research that two languages are better than one - not only in terms of the child’s language sensitivity, but also in terms of the cognitive growth of the child (Baker, 1993). As a result schools throughout Europe have begun to consider bilingualism and have begun to implement an education system which attempts to create bilingual competence in the child. It is proposed that if deaf children have sign language competence in early education, they have a channel for the development of spoken and written language. The potential of deaf children can be released in this positive enabling framework.

An excellent analysis and commentary on this situation comes from the Americans, Johnson, Liddell and Erting (1989). In their monograph, which succeeded in bringing to the fore, a vital debate on the direction of American Deaf Education, they set out important principles for the language experiences of deaf children, under which, sign competence was considered a priority with speech and writing being secondary. In their view, deaf children like all other children should have a fluent and effective language from the earliest age. Bilingualism will follow naturally before and during schooling. From this perspective, sign language plays a vital role in the establishment of communication and cognition.

A similar debate has occurred in Europe. For example, in the UK, in Holland, new initiatives are being implemented which are joining established programmes in Sweden and Denmark, all now emphasising the principles of early access to sign. It might seem that the status of sign language in European deaf education has never been higher. Moreover, it might be imagined that Tervoort’s views have been borne out such that there is a movement from oralism to supported means such as fingerspelling or cued speech, to sign supported speech and finally to sign language which can be delivered in a bilingual framework.

However, he also predicted ominously that:
“Use of a true sign language in educational contexts is simply impossible as long as such a language remains unidentified and its grammar and lexicon unaccounted for.” page 146, 1983
Moreover, it seems reasonable to suggest that the understanding of sign language is further dependent on a recognition of the community and culture of deaf people. Evidence to date would suggest that this latter target has not yet been achieved.

12.5 A View of Deafness

Although theorists, researchers and deaf people are more aware of the possibilities of sign languages and have actively promoted bilingual policies and practices, the reality is that hearing society has hardly accepted their validity. The population of Europe is nearly 400 million people yet less than 0.1% have real access to sign language. Figures presented by supporters of sign language are hopelessly optimistic in terms of the number of deaf sign users and of the numbers of fluent signers among the hearing population.

Although there is a gradual retrenchment in oralism and a huge deficit in oralist research as compared to sign research, the impact on the communities of Europe is negligible.
At the same time, it is suspected that the impact on deaf people is also limited. There is an emerging small group of deaf people who live and work in signing environments. Yet the vast majority of deaf people live in hearing communities, born to hearing parents, having hearing children, uncertain as to how and when they should use sign language. Although teachers and parents are interested in sign language, they have rarely anywhere to learn effectively or any means to immerse themselves in language or culture; despite their initial enthusiasm, they reach an early and low plateau of performance in sign.

Significantly, the decision makers in education, psychology, social services are still unable to sign. In Europe, there can be no more than a handful of headteachers of deaf schools who are deaf themselves; there are still relatively few hearing headteachers who can communicate effectively in sign with the deaf children in their care.

Oralism may be on the wane but sign language has yet to fill the vacuum.

There have been changes in many places (as Tervoort suggested there would be) notably in the previously strong oralist countries of Britain and Holland. These policy changes in deaf schools have brought sign into the classroom. But the problems of hearing staff learning a sign language later in life and in less than ideal learning environments, has meant that the use of sign in class is mostly accompanied by speech and it suffers from all of the weaknesses which were reported by Johnson, Liddell and Erting (1989) eg deaf children are not able to understand their teachers well when speech and sign are mixed - even when done apparently fluently.

The rights of access to the curriculum can rarely be achieved when this form and level of communication is in place.
Although more people talk about bilingualism than before, the practice of parents, teachers and other professionals is still some way from the use of two languages. At times, this circumstance may arise as a deliberate policy. Sign may appear in school but this is rarely an abandonment of spoken language, merely an attempt at soft assimilation. Sign may be treated as a temporary prop to be replaced by the language of the majority as soon as is feasible.
It is clear that there has been only a limited move to heritage teaching (as there has been in the case of say, American Indians). Deaf children remain ignorant of their deaf roots and of the culture, to which they could belong. More significantly, they still come to their natural language late and ineffectively, at best with low status models, at worst, with only peers, struggling at the same time to develop a self-image and native language. Not surprisingly, the performance in school is depressed.
Recent studies in Flanders and in Ireland confirm the pattern of low achievement in education and employment and the resulting low personal status which is attached to the deaf person.

12.6 Areas of growth and change

Interestingly, the media are much more interested in deaf people than ever before and as a consequence, opportunities in Higher Education have increased; more interpreters are being trained than in the past. At the same time, the north-south divide in Europe is highlighted by these factors. Although Scandinavian initiatives in education and social provision have grown, Mediterranean Europe lags behind. It would seem that there remain gross imbalances throughout Europe.

Nevertheless, on a positive note, we can see that deaf people have the same level of intelligence as hearing people. There is considerable evidence that deaf people perform in cognitive non-verbal tasks just as well as hearing people. In certain visual tasks they perform better.
Also sign language is to some extent recognised and researched by linguists and psychologists. In many European countries there are teams of researchers studying and documenting aspects of sign language and its grammar. Usually, these teams include deaf people; significantly there are no teams led by deaf people - at least none in Universities or in Public Laboratories or Institutions.

In some places, the deaf staff are not fully recognised staff. Hearing people unable or unwilling to challenge the establishment, appoint deaf people as anything other than academic research staff. Deaf people rarely achieve the status which would widen the horizons of others. Even when the job involves study of their own language, deaf people occupy lower status jobs.

This is often recognised in some ways and a caring society tries to integrate its disabled groups. When society tries to include deaf people, sometimes the results are exclusion. Although civil rights are invoked as a stimulus to inclusive education and as a means of informing society of its disabled members, the reality for many deaf children is that integration highlights isolation by making the contrast between themselves and hearing children more obvious. When education is competitive, deaf children appear to do less well than their hearing peers.

Often the cause of the problem is located in the condition of deafness itself. Deaf people may suffer from continued medical intervention. The search for an elusive cure for deafness continues. As long as Medicine treats deafness as an illness, there will exist the right of intervention for medical practitioners. Parents will be convinced of the need to cure the illness. New operations on their own children will be accepted and embraced by parents. However, there is often no clear guidance from deaf people themselves, when they are parents.

Although in the last twenty years, researchers have re-discovered sign language (there were excellent descriptions available in the 19th century e.g. Tyler, 1864), it is often the case that deaf people are not aware of their own language’s rules. They have had little access to the research findings of the teams mentioned earlier.
Access to information is commonly seen as a priority but it is problematic for deaf people. The reason is simple: there is as yet no good means of disseminating information in a sign language form other than in live presentation. In order to obtain information deaf people have to attend lectures. Videotapes with instructional material are not effective or convenient as they are wholly serial in overall structure - the viewer has to play the tape from the beginning to the end and in the correct sequence. This makes it more time-consuming to extract information from fixed sources. Compared to hearing people’s access to books, deaf people are much worse off in their use of video.

For hearing people, the explosion in knowledge which came from the invention of printing was in having available a non-serial means of information gathering. A book can be opened on any page and the reader can move around almost at will. Books are also readable anywhere. On the other hand, signed videos are often translations of spoken text or are insertions of interpreted text in programmes made for hearing people. It would seem that other than in Denmark where there has been a stronger tradition of use of this medium, the videotapes which are currently in circulation are having a rather limited impact.

Such a lack of dissemination has a further knock-on effect. The discoveries of researchers are not presented to deaf people in a meaningful form; deaf parents are not convinced of the status of their own language and are likely to adopt a majority position in trying to implement a speech policy at home - in order to prepare their hearing children for the hearing majority world. Significantly, we have also come across deaf parents speaking to deaf children, rather than signing. This language insecurity leads to distorted communication at home and limited development of the natural language.

More significantly, as a result of educational guidance principles for child-rearing promoted by oralist philosophies, in the past and even now, deaf people may experience mental health problems for many years after they leave school. Although the well-meaning education offered by hearing educators may not produce delinquent deaf children during school days, the incidence of mental ill-health in deaf people is much greater than in the hearing population - anything up to 15 times (Griggs and Kyle, 1996). The lack of communication in education is time-bomb placed in the deaf child’s existence in a hearing society.

12.8 The Future

The opportunities for deaf people ought to be greater now than ever before. Advanced telecommunications are opening up the possibility of visual communication at a distance. Video-based media offers the chance for deaf people to learn through the medium of their own language. Society is on the verge of a major revolution.

12.9 Summary

The main thrust of the course is clearly specified in what Bahan has to say about the deaf and hearing worlds.
"She looked a bit irritated, and said, "Why don't you speak?" while pointing to her lips.
I thought "she must be one of those wackos," and proceeded to squirm my slimy tongue around its oral cavity and uttered, "Un hs..hagmerbersugar uth kees."
She suddenly looked bewildered, and turned to look at the menu. She took my order and left.
Fifteen minutes later she came back with my cheeseburger and a note. I read the note and it said: "I have a deaf brother who went to a wonderful school up north. Now he speeks wel, you know you shoold lern to speek. Its nevar to lat. Aftar al you lif in a hearing wurld."
I read her note and wondered where she learned to write. But as I read on I thought, "what right does she have to claim, without asking me, that I did not receive speech training. After all, I went to a school that incorporates this method in its School Philosophy.....I pondered on that issue. What right do hearing people have to impose on us the dominance of their world? What is even worse, there are deaf people who strongly uphold hearing world values on us deaf people. They go around saying you have to learn to speak because it is a hearing world. It's strange because while they use that phrase, they are denying their own existence as a deaf person. If the world is not theirs, then who are they?
I am proposing for us all to go out and say, "Hell, it's our world, too! Of course, I cannot deny the fact that there are more many more hearing people than there are deaf. But I can and will deny them the right to claim the world."
                        Bahan(1989, p. 45-47)