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

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