Deaf in America's Introduction

lowercase deaf when referring to audiological condition of not hearing

uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group of deaf people who share language and culture

deaf - person who can’t hear

Deaf - deaf person immersed in their culture

self-identification is an important diagnostic in deciding who is Deaf

there is a lot of diversity in the Deaf community

• different signed languages

• distinctive identities within locations, even in the same signed language

because of segregation, there is a white and a black variety of ASL

there are people with severe or profound hearing impairment who do not participate in the community of Deaf people

school plays an important role in the community

• residential schools: state and funded boarding schools for deaf children. through high school

  • return home only for weekends and holidays

  • ORAL - disallow use of signed language

  • MANUAL - signed language is allowed

    • educational policy still emphasizes speech and English

  • in the dorms, deaf children are introduced to the social life of Deaf people

• public school

ASL is independent of English

• verbs can be separated into 3 classes

• different sentence structure