[misc.handicap] ASL vs oralism /speech reading

Fran.O'Gorman@p0.f94.n272.z1.fidonet.org (Fran O'Gorman) (11/28/90)

Index Number: 11985

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Hi James,
      I read with interest your msgs to Ann in defense of sign
language ASL and I must say that while I was beginning to see
Ann's point of view, that speech reading and oralism would be
preferred because of it's obvious link with the hearing population
and also its inclination towards written and spoken language
skills being enhanced (and acquired) whereas ASL being so
different, it would make that more difficult, I was now seeing ASL
as a different form and how natural it is for the deaf person.
Not being deaf myself, only an ASL user for my daughter who is
speech impaired, it was from your description of the experience of
being deaf, I could see ASL in that light.
     Ironically, my Mary, who was only being taught bits of sign
for many years (because she hears, they were very slow to
introduce that and when they did only superficially) actually
started to develop the different word order that ASL uses.  Her
speech therapist was trying to get her to use a word order that
more approximated English.  It was only when I was taking an
Intermediate course in ASL that I discovered that this word order
is part of the grammer of ASL (and something BTW I found as a
hearing English oriented person very hard to master).
     So what I'm trying to say is that your point that ASL is a
very natural response to being a visual language, and the need to
express oneself visually was very well taken.  The fact that it is
different (very different) from spoken language really should not
place it in a sense of being "inferior" as even I was beginning to
place it.  It's like we, in the US telling the rest of the world
they should know English thus be better able to communicate with
us, rather than us making the effort to learn the language of
other countries.  
     In a recent cover story of U.S. News and World Report which
traces the anthropological history of language which now experts
feel trace back to a single mother tongue, the author describes
language as the "integral cultural glue that binds a society
together and signals its presence."  How very much so this applies
to the deaf and the existence of "deaf culture" and also, isn't
this a good thing after all.  This is not to say that it isn't
good and perhaps even important that wherever possible the deaf
person could also (and I say ALSO not instead of) learn spoken
English or speech reading so as to interface more easily with the
speaking/hearing world much like we Americans should learn the
languages of other countries (which most other countries do a
better job at) but that ASL really has a very real place in their
lives and fulfills a very real need.
     The HI person is better off (in a pragamatic sense) who has
these skills (speaking and speech reading) but is not "better" in
the deeper sense of that word.
     Some more thoughts on this topic which having read your msgs
I feel is a deeper one than I originally saw it as.

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