A

MJ Bienvenu - Resistance to American Deaf Culture

  • Ethnocentrism: belief that their culture is the best
    • people in America grow up believing that everyone should have five senses
    • focus on lack of sound - believe Deaf people are handicapped
    • many people equate language and speech - assume Deaf people can't have a language
    • \
  • Language Bigotry: my language is the only true language
    • power of majority culture can be used to annihilate a language
    • Replacement: replacing ASL with oralism
    • Dialectilization: forces minority language to become a part of the majority language
      • linguistic mainstreaming
      • Manually Coded English
  • No Deaf City, USA
    • no central geographical location
    • they do gather geographically ➝ residential schools, Deaf clubs, state and national associations, etc.
  • Only 10% Acquire ADC from Family
    • typically, a child acquires language and culture from their parents / their environments
    • bc 90% of Deaf people are born to Hearing parents, children are not enculturated until school
  • Blocking Recognition of ASL
    • Department of Education doesn’t recognize ASL as a language (1994)
    • Also not recognized by federal govt.
  • Deaf Community doesn’t equal Deaf Culture
    • not all deaf people are members of ADC
    • people who become deaf at later ages are likely not enculturated ut are asked to speak for the community because they have intelligible speech”
  • Legislation Promotes Disabled View
  • Pathological Mindset in Education
    • oralism and the banning of ASL in classrooms had detrimental effects on deaf children
    • bc deafness is viewed as a handicap, teachers have low expectations many instructors in Deaf Education don’t have to pass ASL proficiency requirements
    • focus on speech, audiology, and language deficiency
    • don’t focus on deaf culture
  • Communication is “Good Enough”
    • language is used to communicate but you can communicate without language (body language, face usage, etc)
  • Scientific Community Wants to Cure
    • deaf people are viewed as disabled, rather than a cultural and linguistic minority
    • easier for experimental methods to be used in the name of science
    • ex: cochlear implants on children